Stronger Than Fiction 2026

A poster for the 2026 Stronger Than Fiction Film Festival showing an illustration of a tiger looking through a diamond

For a decade, the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism has been producing the next generation of non-fiction filmmakers. Each year, the Murray Center showcases its graduating students’ films at the Missouri Theatre.

Fittingly, this year’s festival consists of 14 of some of the strongest films the center has produced. Students have worked on these films for more than a year, representing a wide range of topics and approaches, but united by their thoughtfulness, and attention to craft. 

The starting point for all of these films came last spring, with the Murray Center Pitch Forum, where students presented their ideas to a panel of industry professionals. Since then, these young filmmakers have worked and reworked their ideas, and undertaken the singular challenge of making a documentary film. While each student is responsible for making their own film, they haven’t done it alone.

They’ve been advised by some of the leading lights of the documentary film world through the Murray Center Visiting Artist Program, continually guided by the center’s faculty, staff, alumni and - crucially - their peers. In doing so, 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 16, with films screening in three blocks, at 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7 p.m. The online festival runs for one week on MethodMFilms.com, from May 17 to May 24. Four films will be awarded with prizes decided by this year’s jury, and they will play at a special screening in New York.

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

Stronger Than Fiction 2026 Schedule

SATURDAY, MAY 16

1 PM BLOCK

4 PM Block

7 PM BLOCK

Festival Jury

Eric Hynes is the 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.

Brittany Shyne is an award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer based in Dayton, Ohio. Working across narrative and nonfiction, her films explore the complexity of everyday life, examining themes such as personal histories, alienation, and cultural modernization. Utilizing observational techniques and poetic language, her work weaves together frameworks of race, class, culture, and family lineage. Her debut feature, Seeds, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the esteemed U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Award.

Nicole Stott is an Award-winning documentary producer and creative executive with deep industry experience across more than 50 international titles, including BAFTA, Emmy and Academy Award-winning nonfiction films and limited series. Most recently, she served as head of documentary at A24, overseeing nonfiction features and series for two and a half years. Prior to that, she was co-head of nonfiction at concordia studio, co-helming creative and serving as a primary investment decision-maker for over five years from the studio's inception.

Films

Barber

dir. Kyle Button

In a world where men are quietly seeking connection but struggling to find it, the barbershop poses as a space for them to build relationships. The star of this film, Tristan Cramer, explores connection and love in two very different but connected spaces. As a barber, he serves and pours life into his customers, but who pours into him? Tristan invites us to think about connection in our lives through the frames of his life. Barber asks the question: how do you love those around you?

Flyboy

dir. Elia Mast

After a near-fatal motorcycle accident, Greg is forced to make a decision as memories left in Vietnam resurface. While the sights, sounds and smells of home trigger flashbacks to the fighting in Vietnam, there was one individual that always grounded Greg. Donna has been there after every emergency landing, crash, accident and close call. She has followed Greg across the states and overseas for his love of motorcycles and aviation, but she has always wanted him to stop putting himself in danger. Even at 81 years old Greg is in denial about slowing down, but it seems life might force him to.

Precious Thing

dir. Kenzie Ripe

A daughter discusses the overlapping issues with her current life and her mother's previous and current experiences through phone calls over the course of many months while away at college. Life events cause conversations to get more serious and pressing, beginning to affect both women's lives as they cling to each other for comfort and consistency.

Doula

dir. Saylor Campbell

Doula follows Missouri doula Jeadawn Cropp’s care for expectant mother Renata Roberts. A founding member of the Mid-Missouri Black Doula Collective, an organization dedicated to addressing Black maternal mortality, the film examines how Cropp is fighting the crisis one birth at a time. With an ever present joy and wit, Cropp shoulders everything from check-ups and baby shower planning to community organizing and the birth of Roberts’ son in this portrait of the fierce bonds that form between Black women when they support one another throughout motherhood.

Half The Results

dir. Jack Calvert

Shane Stander is a committed skate shop owner who is coming up on five years of opening a new skate shop; coincidentally down the street from the one he used to co-run.  As the filmmaker attempts to ask questions and poke around, this film explores the passion, peculiarity and community of the mid-Missouri skateboarding scene.

Then, There Was Her.

dir. Sara Kate Burnett

Set between Caroline’s life at college and her family’s farm back home, she and her dad, Dow, begin to quietly reflect on what the future holds. Dow stays grounded in the daily work of preserving the legacy passed down through generations, while Caroline approaches adulthood unsure of how the farm fits into her own path. Between Dow’s steady commitment to the land and Caroline’s search for independence, both father and daughter face the question of what it means to carry a family story forward and who will choose to continue it.

Tapestry of Life

dir. Eric Kiekeben

When Franz Kiekeben, the filmmaker’s dad, came to the U.S. from Portugal at 12 years old with his parents and five siblings, they were escaping 1970s Portuguese political instability and aiming to build a better life across the Atlantic Ocean. The Kiekebens came over with their family needlepoint tapestry business, which provided unique, colorful heirlooms depicting life in Portugal. Over the next 20 years after immigrating, all of Franz’s siblings and parents returned to Portugal, leaving him as the lone American. Now in his 60s, Franz is recovering from a stroke—something his own father passed away from at the same age. Tapestry of Life explores how life-threatening medical incidents affect people like Franz, who already had a love of relics of the past, as they simultaneously try to move forward in life and navigate the uncertainties that come with age.

Before Goodbye

dir. Taylor Perkins

As his younger brother prepares to graduate high school, Owen faces a future without Dane by his side. A 20-year-old with Down syndrome, Owen must define his own independence and choose his own path. Over their final weeks together in Tulsa, he confronts change and discovers his strength and resilience while his brother prepares for life away from home. Through these moments, Owen builds confidence and a clearer sense of self as he steps into adulthood on his own terms.

Sueños

dir. Valerie Tiscareno

Sueños explores Ana Flores' story of moving to the United States from Chihuahua, Mexico when she was 13 years old. Throughout the film we are invited to sit in her reality as time passes by, revealing her childlike dreams and wonder. Interwoven through observational footage of her eldest daughter Mariana’s quinceañera. The film invites us to reflect on legacy, sacrifice, and who will carry on the dreams we were unable to achieve.

For A Day Like Today

dir. Tia Sarkar

Where do you see the ones you have lost? Following the death of her husband, Dan, in November of 2010, Suzanne Frisse Lathrop converts her Facebook into a public diary, housing her grief in magical and unexpected ways. A ritual throughout her week, Suzanne photographs the sky and shares photos containing strange spherical aberrations which she calls "orbs." For A Day Like Today confronts American attitudes surrounding grief all the while inviting audiences to reflect on how and where they see those they have lost.

I Hope We Remember This

dir. Hannah Schuh

Hannah can’t remember 18 years of her life, and she doesn’t know why. In the midst of her search for answers, Hannah looks to relive those lost memories by casting her younger sister, Sydney, as a past version of herself. I Hope We Remember This examines the relationship between footage and memory, and explores how identity is shaped even when you don’t remember who you are.

Ozark Odyssey

dir. Aiyana Massie

Every summer, an estimated two million tourists voyage to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, enjoying vacations filled with debauchery. The seasons change, tourists return home, and the locals resume their daily lives in a town in rural Missouri. Ozark Odyssey explores the lasting effects of a town shaped by seasonal extremes and cultural dissonance. What does it mean to live in a place so dependent on fantasies far removed from its everyday reality? How do residents build a sense of community in a town that is constantly shifting around them?


Cut It Out

dir. Sophie Chappell

Two years after “something bad” happened at a party, Sophie decides that she is not sufficiently healed. She starts by turning to her community and her camera for help. But reflective conversations alone cannot alleviate her hurt. Over time, she realizes the only path forward is back — and then through — so she returns to places from her past in an attempt at closure. The film ultimately reflects on her fear that no matter how much time passes, nothing will be enough to heal what is inside her.

How To Exhume A Grave In Five Steps

dir. Ren Ohlmeier

In January of 2025 Henderick Morton first heard about a 54-year-old unidentified body in his hometown’s graveyard. Naturally, the journalism college student decided he was the one to investigate and discover the identity of this body. How to Exhume a Grave in Five Steps shows the journey of the six-month process of convincing the town and forensic anthropologists to come, exhume, and identify the unidentified victim of the first ever Amtrak derailment and begin to face how the idea of what a 19-year-old with an idea can do.