This year’s Ebert Fellows attended the True/False Film Festival, one of the most essential non-fiction cinema events of the year. Here are their reports:
KENNEDY CALDWELL
The true crime genre has transformed from investigative journalism into a cultural spectacle that blurs the line between justice, entertainment and exploitation. This shift was evident at this year’s True/False Film Festival in Columbia, MO, where two documentaries, “Predators” and “The Zodiac Killer Project,” examined this dynamic from different angles.
“Predators” revisits the rise and fall of “To Catch a Predator,” the NBC Dateline series that aired from 2004 to 2007, questioning the ethics of turning criminal entrapment into “must-watch” TV.
“The Zodiac Killer Project” unpacks the cliches and tropes of the true crime genre, deconstructing its persistent, widespread appeal. Together, these films challenge audiences to reconsider their complicity in the media machine of crime and punishment.
With “Predators,” director David Osit explores the cultural phenomenon of a controversial television show whose appeal relied on luring suspected child predators into on-camera sting operations under the guise of investigative journalism. Through a sharp, multi-layered analysis, the film explores the meteoric success of “To Catch a Predator” and its host, Chris Hansen, and how the program’s ethically murky tactics fueled its downfall.
During the post-screening discussion at a True/False screening, filmmaker Osit reflected on what he learned about morality and injustice while making the documentary. “Everyone has a sort of calcified sense of right and wrong,” he said. “It freezes in place, and sometimes it freezes in place at a young age, or it freezes in place because of trauma.”
His film doesn’t just examine the actions of “To Catch a Predator”; it turns the question back on the audience, asking why we find so much pleasure in watching these gotcha! moments unfold on screen. “Why do we enjoy what we enjoy? How can we find pleasure in watching someone’s life end, and why do we need to as a society?” Osit asked the audience.
“Predators” highlights what the director describes as the “dual flame” of human nature—our capacity for both empathy and cruelty. “That’s part of our humanity. It’s part of what makes us flawed, but it’s also something that was harvested for the sake of this television show,” he noted. The subject is profoundly personal to Osit, as his film, and his own on-camera interrogation of “To Catch a Predator” host Hansen, reveals to us.
While “Predators” dissects true crime’s moral contradictions, “Zodiac Killer Project” is a self-aware experiment in the genre’s aesthetics and conventions. Directed by Charlie Shackleton, the film unfolds like a case study in what true crime has become, except in this case, the crime itself is absent.
Rather than constructing a traditional investigative narrative, Shackleton presents his plans and visual strategies for a documentary he never got to make. He mixes his footage of possible locations for that unmade project with archival footage, voice-over, and footage that’s basically B-roll, “Zodiac Killer Project” reconstructs what Shackleton’s abandoned documentary might have been. Due to legal constraints, he made it without the rights to most of the key case materials, forcing him to rely instead on abstract visuals and atmospheric cues.
The result captures how the true crime genre depends so often, and predictably, on shots of desolate parking lots, or courtroom hallways, or generic suburban homes stripped of life, rather than concrete revelations or a resolution. By stripping away the usual sensationalism, the film forces the audience to confront how much of the genre is built on suggestion rather than substance. Watching “Zodiac Killer Project” feels like watching a crime documentary dissolve in real time. It doesn’t provide answers or even a complete story; instead, it asks the viewer to reflect on how these stories are usually told and why we find them so compelling.
At a time when true crime dominates streaming platforms and podcasts, both these documentaries force us to confront the ethics of our fascination. Are we engaging with these stories for awareness, or are we simply feeding an industry built on spectacle? Seeing
“Predators” and “Zodiac Killer Project” back-to-back at True/False was a clear reminder that documentaries aren’t just about uncovering the truth. They can challenge us to question why we we’re looking for it in the first place.
AARON ANASTOS
“The Paris of the Midwest,” some call it. Once a year, over the first weekend in March, Columbia, Missouri becomes the most interesting hub of learning for any student film connoisseur. The Mizzou-adjacent hamlet welcomes the True/False Film Festival, a documentary-focused festival gathering a diverse slew of film buffs and critics alike.
Among this year’s 32 features, the world premieres screened at True/False earlier this month included the invigorating “How Deep is Your Love,” directed by Eleanor Mortimer. The documentary tells the story of Mortimer’s own journey into the Pacific Ocean, a week’s sail from land. She accompanied a group of scientists intent on discovering and documenting new sea-life on the vast ocean floor.
Aboard this 55-day voyage, Mortimer strikes a joyful and charming balance between the scientists floating on the waves and the alien-like gelatinous blobs a little more than three miles below. The latter emerge as the true protagonists.
“I grew up in the biggest shipping port in England. It was a dream to go on a ship,” remarked Mortimer during the post-screening Q&A. It shows in the filmmaking. “How Deep is Your Love” is more than a scientific joyride. It’s a call to action, seen in the film’s framing of looming deep-sea mining companies as destructive horror villainy incarnate.
But the wonder of the vast ocean is never lost on the audience, whether shown through the scientists’ awe while discovering a new sea slug, or through the twinkle in foreign diplomats’ surprised eyes when asked what type of sea creature they’d be, if they had a choice.
Taxonomy, the meticulous pursuit of naming organisms, is what begins our story in a mainland lab. Mortimer provides the silky narration through which several scientific concepts are explained. The backdrop soon becomes the Pacific Ocean, and it’s a welcome sight. Also anchoring the narrative are the endearing scientists aboard the ship, whom we get to know by way of intimate and often humorous asides.
“There’s a warmth towards humans in this film…everyone has this kind of curiosity for the unknown,” Mortimer told me after the screening. “So it’s a chorus of humans and a chorus of animals, and everyone’s just trying to understand each other in that way.”
The film makes a grand to-do in the introduction of a mechanical sea floor rover. This makes its entrance after the film establishes our cast of scientists, and the tension between their community and the mining companies whose mineral excavation razes the sea floor dwellers’ habitat.
“How Deep is Your Love” amps up the pace with an on-screen ticking clock, marking the countdown to the deadline, set by a diplomatic committee in Australia, regarding a ruling favoring the mining corporation or the deep-water species.
Director Mortimer intended the documentary to be purely observational with no narration. She and her colleagues changed course in the editing process. The original concept might’ve been tighter, but there’s no doubt that Mortimer’s spoken words offer a broader scope. “What was really wonderful about creating the character of the narrator,” editor Nicole Halova told me after the screening, “was (balancing) the animals and the humans, and putting them on the same level.”
The grand centerpiece is the exploration of the sea floor, including a long stretch of wordless observation. Here, the audience sits side by side with the researchers, staring into the dreamlike abyss. What a dream it is. Fraya Thomsen’s sweeping musical score whisks us on a journey made by ISIS, the sea floor rover named for the Egyptian goddess of healing and fertility. The rover, remote-controlled by one of the shipboard scientists on the ocean’s surface, bears down on countless strange and fascinating creatures, from scurrying lobsters to a gelatinous pink sea blob the scientists name “Barbie Pig.” This was a clear fan favorite, meriting a wave of laughter from the True/False audience at the Blue Note screening venue.
Mortimer’s documentary depicts a clear-cut, often bleak battle for survival, where even a well-meaning human intruder guided by a research mission can disrupt an entire ecosystem. One sequence depicts rover ISIS as it attempts and fails to robotically grasp a massive sea cucumber and place it in a storage bin for extraction. This scene is both a comedy of frustration and a gripping story of survival.
“I think we’re living in a time where there’s a lot of pessimism towards humanity,” said Mortimer, adding she hoped her film showed “humans trying their best to do things fairly.” Her love for the quirky creatures of the sea is infectious. If “How Deep is Your Love” gets the release it deserves, it can infect more audiences (non-virally) with an appreciation for what lies far below the waves.
DIAMOND STEWARD-HUTTON
During the recent True/False Film Festival I had the pleasure of seeing “Seeds” and “Land With No Rider,” two of the festival’s many documentaries screened at the Blue Note venue in downtown Columbia, MO. “Land With No Rider,” a world premiere, was finished one day before its first True/False screening, director Tamar Lando said in the post-screening discussion.
The film focuses on four cattle ranchers in New Mexico, owners and cowboys in their 80s. Highlighting these ranch elders, in a location new to many audience members, captures a place and a story rarely documented on screen. You could feel the audience’s concern about the lives of these men.
One rancher’s reaction to watching the completed documentary was short and sweet: “That looks like me! That really looks like me!” Director Lando shared this story in the post-screening talk, and the audience erupted with laughter while learning one more aspect of the rancher’s personalities.
“Land With No Rider” has a few things in common with “Seeds,” which won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. It also captures a rural community’s tradition-minded survivors, this one in Georgia. Brittney Shyne, who served as director and cinematographer, establishes the theme of Black farmers advocating for themselves and for federal funding, just like the white farmers. The film’s depiction of a rare community’s lifestyle keeps the “Seeds” audience invested throughout.
The film highlights the constant cycle of life and death, with simple moments of conversation filmed through car windows, or captured on a front porch. The black-and-white cinematography in “Seeds” adds another layer of richness, allowing the audience to see and feel the emotional weight of the community’s struggles, as well as the strength they draw from their shared history.
In one scene a woman washes her hair and exclaims “Touch my hair! Touch my hair!” to the filmmaker, holding the camera. Shyne did so, which led to a shaky visual moment with the bonus of showing a real connection between Shyne and the film’s subjects.
One farmer in the film notes that in 1910 Black farmers owned 16 million acres nationwide. Today it’s down to 5.3 million acres, a fraction of the white-owned crop land. The legacy of Black-owned farms, as one farmer in the documentary says, may soon die, with Black Americans leaving the south, or staying in the south but leaving farming altogether. Many believe this Black community is missing out on rebuilding what their ancestors had.
“Seeds” and “Land With No Rider” share common themes of underrepresented communities, and providing a voice for those whose stories are rarely told. Both films offer a profound exploration of the joys and struggles faced by individuals living in marginalized communities. The audience is invited to empathize with characters who are often forgotten by society. They provide important perspectives that challenge mainstream narratives. And they stand in stark contrast to many, more commercially driven documentaries focusing on young people in big cities.
True/False was my first film festival. Experiencing these and other films, as part of a big, eager audience, has informed my view of how documentaries can spark interest in a community completely new to me. The True/False energy is very welcoming, whether you’re mapping out your screening schedule or recommending a film to someone.
