I made it to my first Festival, after three years of putting on the Show-Me Film Festival, I can appreciate the efforts and more importantly, the results. For example, I got to see Robert King in Blood Trail

The famed war photographer Robert King believes he was put on this earth as a messenger of human suffering. He serves as a wry, insightful guide to world’s bleakest, bloodiest war zones, from Bosnia to Chechnya to Iraq. Richard Parry’s brutally intimate film follows King’s transition from naïve, 24-year-old aspiring war photographer — who dreamed of being the youngest photojournalist to win the Pulitzer Prize — to self-described “damaged goods,” a scarred war veteran trying not to lose himself in booze and women and who can’t begin to count the number of dead bodies he’s stepped over. His stories are harrowing, his photos bleakly gorgeous, but it is King’s eyes that reveal the deeper truths about war, violence and suffering. After all he’s seen, King is a survivor, his energy and humor intact. And that itself is an indelible image. (BH)

Curating a Gem of a Fest: True/False Reflects on First Six Years
by Brian Brooks (February 26, 2009) for Indiewire

Quickly becoming a favorite among the U.S. and even international documentary community, the True/False Film Festival, gets underway tonight here in Columbia, MO with a slate of just over 40 titles screening through the weekend. And becoming a destination for both filmmakers and industry is quite a feat for a still relatively small event, which has, nevertheless, attracted A-list docs and their directors (2009 Oscar-winning doc “Man on Wire” by James Marsh closed the fest last year) to Columbia, a town of around 100,000 people in the middle of the state.

True/False Film Festival 2009
By Robert Davis on February 27, 2009 for Paste Magazine

The filmmakers are here and seem eager to answer questions about their work or chat informally after screenings, many of which take place at the Ragtag Cinema, a two-screen hive of activity fronted by a cafe as big as the theaters themselves. You can carry your glass of wine into the movie if you want, and there you’ll be greeted not by mindless muzak or advertising but by live music from local musicians who play before every show. My first screening Thursday night was ushered in by some groovy noise courtesy of Witch Pussy. (Or was it “Which”? Good question.) Tonight it was a guy singing country with his guitar and later a bluegrass duo.

The Ragtag screens interesting fare year-round and is also a model for the Moxie Cinema three hours south in Springfield, which, despite the cool indie theater, is arguably Missouri’s least hip city. I can say this because I grew up there,

There’s a Flickr Pool as well

True/False co-chiefs, Paul Sturtz and David Wilson. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

With a guest list that ranging from industry insiders to a who’s who of documentary filmmakers, the True/False Film Festival has an enviable event for a relatively “small” festival in the Midwest. Though “small” is relative, with the size of the fest’s enthusiastic audiences turning out for a cross section of documentaries including Anders Ostegaard’s award-winning “Burma VJ” (IDFA, Sundance), Kim Longinotto’s prize-winning “Rough Aunties” (Sundance, IDFA), Joe Berlinger’s “Crude” (Sundance), Fredrik von Krusenstjerna’s “Necrobusiness,” Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s “October Country,” Kimberly Reed’s “Prodigal Son” and not to mention a bevy of “secret screenings” among the curated fest’s 40 or so feature selections.

Currently on a break from the documentary that he and the True/False Film Festival’s David Wilson have been making in Missouri this summer, Schnack enlisted Wilson and “Branson” collaborator Nate Truesdell to help him here in Denver. He is producing the film with partner Shirley Moyers, the Denver Film Society’s Britta Erickson, Jenny Chikes, and Truesdell.

Pictured above are Left to right: Nate Truesdell, Julia Reichert, AJ Schnack, Jennifer Poitras, Laura Poitras, Steven Bognar, Paul Taylor and David Wilson. Photo by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

For the past two months, I’ve been spending the majority of my time not in Los Angeles, but in Branson, Missouri, at work on a new nonfiction feature about the community that Bart Simpson once referred to as “Vegas if Ned Flanders ran it” and once famously dubbed “the live entertainment capitol of the world”.

For the first time in my filmmaking career, I am co-directing with my good friend David Wilson (on left in the photo), whom most of you know as the co-conspirator behind the popular and influential True/False Film Festival, but who I have known for years as an accomplished artist in his own right. David and I have been talking for a while about working on a project together and he had long wanted to make a film about Branson, specifically about those who make their home in Branson – a town of 7,000 that draws more than 8 million visitors a year with its mix of music shows, outdoor recreation and self-described family friendly values (read: patriotism and religious values worn proudly on sleeve).

We hope that our film – one that looks to the future of what Branson may soon become – is one that will challenge pre-conceived notions and we’re incredibly grateful to everyone in the community that has opened their door to us, particularly our main subjects who are constantly putting up with our cameras and our questions and what may sometimes appear to be stalker-like behavior.

Welcome back to the Ozarks AJ