Stronger Than Fiction 2025

A poster for the Stronger Than Fiction Film Festival showing a cat composed of various cutouts.

This year’s festival consists of 10 films that represent more than a year of work and dedication from the ninth graduating class of the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism. 

 These undergraduate and graduate students have ranged across the country, going on journeys — literally and figuratively — to complete the films that they pitched to a panel of industry professionals last spring. Along the way, the students were guided by a long line of award-winning filmmakers through the center’s Visiting Artist Program, and continually advised by the center’s faculty, staff, alumni and their peers. Each student is ultimately responsible for their own film, but they have all embodied the collaboration and generosity of spirit that is core to the center — producing, editing and filming on each other’s projects throughout. 

 This year’s festival is once again hosted in the historic Missouri Theatre, a 1920s movie palace ideal for watching the films on the big screen, something each of these films has earned. The festival takes place on Saturday, May 17, with films screening in two blocks, at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. The online festival runs for one week on MethodMFilms.com, from May 18 to May 25. Four films will be awarded with prizes decided by this year’s jury, and they will play at the 2026 First Look Film Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

 This is the ninth annual Stronger Than Fiction Film Festival, and it speaks to the talent and hard work of these students that they continue to raise the bar when it comes to the quality and professionalism of their films. Their creative vision embodies the freedom and promise of the documentary form as a mode of expression, human connection, and self-discovery.

-Robert Greene, Filmmaker-in-Chief
-Sebastián Martínez Valdivia, Supervising Producer

Stronger Than Fiction 2025 Schedule

3 PM BLOCK

Q&A Break

7 PM BLOCK

Festival Jury

Eric Hynes was recently named Director of Film Curation and Programming at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. He was previously Senior Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York, where he led year-round programming as well as the annual First Look Festival, originating the Working on It sidebar for public-facing work-in-progress presentations. He’s served on festival juries at Sundance, SXSW, CPH:DOX, Dok Leipzig, DokuFest, Cinema du Reel and many others.

Simon Kilmurry is a documentary producer, executive producer, and consultant. He has received one Prime Time Emmy Award, 17 News & Documentary Emmys, and eight Peabody Awards. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild of America, the Television Academy. He served on the board of jurors of the Peabody Awards 2016-2022. He is an advisor to The Redford Center.

Jessica Kingdon is a Chinese-American director/producer named one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine and selected for the 2020 DOC NYC “40 Under 40” list. Her feature documentary, ASCENSION登楼叹 (2021), was nominated for an Oscar at the 94th Academy Awards and won three Cinema Eye Honors, Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival and Hamptons International Film Festival, and Best Editing at DOC NYC. She is currently directing UNTITLED ANIMAL PROJECT which is supported by Sandbox Films and Impact Partners. 

Films

Life After Larry Larson

dir. Caroline Larson

Larry Larson always wanted a story made about him. After passing away in the house of a family farm that he grew up on in 2022, a filmmaker tackles a mission to fulfill his request. Life After Larry Larson follows the filmmaker’s journey back at the family farm as she tries to uncover the mystery of her grandfather. Through candid moments on a farm that is lingering with memories of a once full household, the film delves on the intricate life of Larry and the hardship of having to accept that he will forever be known as the man he once was.

Caught In The Current

dir. Nick Ginter

Lifelong Oregonian, Andy Karlovic, spent most of his career as a salesman, wearing a suit and tie and working 70 hours a week. Desperate for a new direction, he turned to the ocean. What many fishermen refer to as “the big pond” became more than casting a line for Andy: the water became his peace and meditation, driving him to retire from his nine to five to start a charter fishing business and catch a new attitude toward life.

Absolute Necessities For Success

dir. Sophia Douglas

In a world where success is the ultimate prize, a bold, thrill-seeking entrepreneur sets out to revolutionize social connection. Yaro and his best friend build a platform designed to bring people together, only to see their own bond fall apart. His relentless pursuit of success forces him to confront his identity and question the cost of his dreams, and he must walk the line between success and self-destruction.

Burn Control

dir. Tommy Gleason

For centuries fire burned across Missouri’s prairies and forests, creating a flourishing ecosystem. But American expansion west and decades of fire suppression altered the landscape and our perceptions of healthy forests. Missouri’s trees are aging and native prairies have been decimated. Today, fire is returning as a tool in conservation. Landowners, government agencies and conservation organizations are sending fire through the landscape to promote open, healthy forests, deer and turkey populations and insects foundational to the ecosystem. They are navigating the right fire in the right place at the right time, but fire remains a dangerous beast.

WINNER: STACEY WOELFEL PRIZE FOR INNOVATIVE JOURNALISM

What Can You Hear?

dir. Molly Fox

Grappling with a genetic hearing loss disorder, a young filmmaker seeks answers for how to cope with her inevitable deafness. To connect with her hearing-impaired family, she embarks on a road trip across the country with her grandma, mother, and sister in search of her great-grandmother’s memorial. Along the drive, the three generations explore their past, present, and future on the road to silence.

WINNER: BEST DIRECTOR

Perspectivism

dir. Kyle Maki

Perspectivism is a meditation on activism’s quiet battlegrounds. While coastal activists face deportations and arrests, the University of Missouri silences opposition through investigations, exclusions, and gradual erasure. The film follows the president of Mizzou Students for Justice in Palestine, as she navigates a homecoming ban, GOP accusations of terrorism, and her own growing isolation on campus. When her satirical protest draws administrative wrath, a deeper question surfaces: What does resistance mean when it’s met not with batons, but with administrative codes? When the audience isn’t the state, but a community conditioned to look away?

The Long Game

dir. Benjamin Zweig

The Long Game explores Jewish women’s enduring relationship with mahjongg — a game that became more than a pastime. What began as a night carved out for companionship— while their husbands played poker— evolved into a forty-year gathering of connection, laughter and therapy. The film reflects on how cultural rituals endure — and what they quietly hold over time.

WINNER: BEST FILM

Maya Grace

dir. Rilee Malloy

Best friends Maya Collins and Rilee Malloy had a lot of big dreams. Their biggest? To make a movie together. But when Maya passed away from AML complications at fourteen, their dream was left unfinished. Now nearly eight years later, the discovery of Maya’s old vlog camera and bucket list has given Rilee the chance to do the impossible: make a movie with her best friend from beyond the grave.

Pass Time

dir. Jj Measer

Pass Time explores the passive absorption of breaking news and political discourse during one of the most charged elections in history. How did we arrive at this moment, where truth and narrative blur? What forces have shaped our perceptions, and what consequences lie in wait as we drift through an ever-shifting landscape of information? Where are we headed, and can we even see it coming?

WINNER: SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR EDITING

The Hole He Dug

dir. Elise Wilke-Grimm

An aging man who was once surrounded by family now faces the idea of dying alone, the consequence of choices that fractured his relationships beyond repair. As he reflects on his life, he finds an unlikely connection with the filmmaker, a young woman who listens as he revisits the past and searches for meaning in the present. In a story about loss, redemption, and human connection, the film asks the question, is it ever too late to make peace with the choices we make?