True/False 2025

The queer art of Body modification took center stage in 1989 when Fakir Musafar's "Modern Primitives" movement hit alternative cultures around the globe via the punk subcultural magazine Re/Search. A photographer, performance artist, and ritualist, Musafar's work mobilized an entire generation of artists, thinkers, and seekers. A Body To Live In introduces this riveting "Gender Flex" icon to uncover the rich history of western body modification and its controversial intersections with sexuality and spiritual practices.

In his final - and most daring - cinematic statement, Jarman the romantic meets Jarman the iconoclast in a lush soundscape pulsing against a purely blue screen, laying bare his physical and spiritual state.

During eight tumultuous days in 1988 at the world's only Deaf university, four students must find a way to lead an angry mob — and change the course of history.

How Deep is Your Love, follows intrepid biologists exploring the mysterious deep sea, where 70% of our planet lies hidden. As they uncover mesmerizing creatures and ecosystems thriving in darkness, a looming threat emerges: the prospect of deep-sea mining in this untouched wilderness. This film weaves wonder with urgency, challenging us to balance the drive for resources with the intrinsic value of an ecosystem. As we journey through this breathtaking realm, we are left to ponder how deep is our love.

Two intrepid Nairobi women decide to transform what used to be a whites-only library until 1958 into a vibrant cultural hub. Along the way, they must navigate local politics, raise millions for the rebuild, and confront the lingering ghosts of Kenya's colonial past.

With a stunning array of archival images and sounds, renowned filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Michael Almereyda explore the life and ideas of intrepid mid-century utopian neuroscientist, John C. Lilly, whose unorthodox experimentations into human and animal consciousness were controversial in methodology but far-reaching in intent.

Melrick is an unruly young boy who spends his summer in French Guiana at his grandmother's house to escape his turbulent daily life in Stains, France. At the end of his stay, he plays the drum to revive the memory of his late uncle, Lucas Diomar, who died in tragic circumstances. Despite a wave of murders of young men shaking the headlines, Melrick becomes aware of his place in a family destroyed by irreparable grief.

The last cowboys of New Mexico eke out a fragile survival in a shrinking world of isolation, memories and rugged beauty as an epic drought devastates the American West.

In a remote Chinese village, a peasant family endured wars, the communist revolution, and the deadliest famine. Persecution and hardship eventually forced the family to scatter. Against the backdrop of China's rapid urbanization, the filmmaker sets out to unearth her family's enduring bond with this long-forgotten village, hidden deeply in the vast mountain range of Loess Plateau.

Inspired by an unconventional teacher, a group of teenagers in upstate New York in the early 1990s made a student film that uncovered a vast conspiracy involving toxic waste that was poisoning their community. Thirty years later, they revisit their film and confront the legacy of this transformative experience.

Hu Sanshou's first feature documentary sees him return to his grandparents' home in Xiangzidian village (Shaanxi province), accompanied by his camera for the first time. In this intimate and tactile film, his frame follows his family and their neighbors as they go about their daily lives. With their labor-intensive way of life, his grandparents prepare their meals, make tools, and raise pigs while Hu inquires about their recollections of the "three years of difficulty." This period between 1959 and 1961 in the People's Republic of China is commonly known as the Great Famine, when millions died after a collapse in agricultural production during the Great Leap Forward. This tender film documents the essential testimony of elders revealing the reality of the people's communes and rural life.

To Catch a Predator was a popular television show designed to hunt down child predators and lure them to a film set, where they would be interviewed and eventually arrested. An exploration of the scintillating rise and staggering fall of the show and the world it helped create.

Hajar is betrayed by her family and forced to abandon her nomadic lifestyle. Climate change, personal and political issues have drastically diminished the traditional migratory activities of the Bakhtiari tribe.

In 2022, a highway was about to cut across my hometown. I documented the unearthing of graves and interviewed villagers about their memories of the dead. Their narrative enables me to sketch the portraits for the deceased. As I gaze upon them, they seem to question the path and the choices lying ahead of us.

River of Grass is a poetic meditation on the Florida Everglades's fugitive past, present, and future inspired by the late feminist environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas's 1947 book of the same title .

Sally Ride became the first American woman to blast off into space, but beneath her unflappable composure was a secret. Sally's life partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy, reveals their hidden romance and the sacrifices that accompanied their 27 years together.

An exploration of Black generational farmers in the American South reveals the fragility of legacy and the significance of owning land.

In this vulnerable documentary, the filmmaker captures how their family resorts to spiritual interventions in an attempt to rid them of their queer identity. The grandmother believes they must be possessed by a 'demon girl' – the unborn girl their mother was forced to abort before she became pregnant with Hao. Undergoing prayers, therapies, treatments and ceremonies, Hao paints a wry portrait of these complex relationships with admirable clarity and compassion.

An Ivorian father and his daughter set out to continue the book he never finished about a war he experienced as a child. With children in his village today, three generations create timelines, dreams, and memories.

A group of children in the Mayan village of San José Oriente spend their days riding motorcycles and playing soccer, but one of them, David, has other plans. Short film made during the Playlab Films Creator's Lab 2023 in Yucatán, México, with the guidance of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

A chronicle of the power and complexity of the relationship between Corinne and Tiana, two Queer Black womxn who experience cycles of life's joys and pains together in the home they share.

The love story of Gloria Clayborne and renowned jazz pianist Junior Mance, whose charmed career spans seventy years. Junior has played with Dizzy, Dinah, Cannonball––all the greats. But it's not until 1996, that he meets his great love: Gloria Clayborne. They quickly marry, she becomes his manager, and they travel the world together, with music at the center of their relationship.

After a routine follow up appointment, documentary filmmaker and thyroid cancer survivor, Bryn Silverman learns her treatment isn't over. What begins as a solo investigation into the thoroughness of her healthcare, evolves into a larger re-imagining of the metrics we use to measure our well-being and the importance of community in healing.

A filmmaker explores the nature of belief and his childhood fascinations in the context of a man's personal UFO experience.

People congregate at a well on the southern edge of the desert. In a brutal drought, the vast majority of livestock have died. The nearest village used to be spotted with grass huts along the horizon, but these have been taken apart to feed cattle.

In 1998, two high school girls sent a letter to the first-ever women's newspaper in Iran.

When a local community member disappears, a boy faces an early memory, seeking comfort in the indigenous traditions, healing rituals, and guidance from his grandfather.

Scientists and philosophers encounter the limits of their own vision through the eyes of animals.

In a country where eligible men greatly outnumber women, three serial bachelors join an intensive seven-day dating camp led by one of China's most sought-after dating coaches, in what may be their last-ditch effort to find love.

Three sisters living on Canary Islands find their routines transformed by a sense of magic and meditation. Each sister copes in her own way without a breadwinner expressing themselves through their body mixing realism and fantasy.

After a devastating storm wrought by climate change forces them from their home in the Mongolian countryside to the city, a young couple are forced to adapt to a new way of life in this breathtaking and heartbreaking hybrid film.

Luciana is an Italian astrologer, she believes that life is affected by the position of the constellations at the moment of our birth. If we want to change our life, it is enough to visit a place with a favorable constellation on our birthday: the day on which we get the opportunity to be "born again" every year. Many people contact Luciana about their problems, the film follows their stories and birthday trips. Beneath the humorous mood, this film is an empathetic search for meaning in a chaos-filled cosmos.

Forty years after her arranged marriage as a child, Hawa finally begins an independent life and to be literate. However, with the return of the Taliban to power, her dreams, along with those of her daughter and granddaughter, are shattered as they face new struggles.

An immersive archival documentary that reanimates the clash between the then-emerging World Trade Organization (WTO) and the more than 40,000 people who took to the streets of Seattle to protest the WTO's impact on human rights, labor, and the environment.

Against the backdrop of sunbaked parking lots, deserted courthouses, and empty suburban homes — the familiar spaces of true crime, stripped of all action and spectacle — a filmmaker describes his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary and probes the inner workings of a genre at saturation point.

1859 kommunizieren zwei Telegrafisten durch die Strahlungsenergie eines massiven Sonnensturms als einziger Energiequelle. 2012 verfehlt die Strahlung eines vergleichbaren Sonnensturms knapp die Erde.

In the heart of Manhattan, Ting Su, an international student, works to digitize archival film negatives from the "Daily Worker" newspaper. As she gazes into the past, she discovers a connection to her mother's labor history, reflecting on her own future in this ever-changing city.

When a Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wild flowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender essay film questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and land.