Stronger Than Fiction 2023

The 15 films that make up this year’s festival are the end product of more than a year of work put in by undergraduate and graduate students at the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism. 

The films below, which were driven by the personal interests and passions of their directors, range from intimate portraits of individuals to impressionistic explorations of existential questions about art, history and culture. Each film was proposed to and approved by a panel of documentary experts, and guided by faculty, visiting artists, Murray Center alumni and fellow students. 

While each student directed their own film, they worked in a collaborative environment, with support from their peers and those they trusted most. 

This year’s festival once again takes place in the historic Missouri Theatre, a 1920s movie palace ideal for watching the films on the big screen. The festival happens on Friday, May 12 with films screening in three blocks, at 1 pm, 4 pm and 7 pm. The online festival runs for one week here on MethodMFilms.com, from May 13 to May 19. Four films will be awarded with prizes decided by this year’s jury, and they will play at the 2024 First Look Film Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

This is the seventh annual Stronger Than Fiction Film Festival, and it is once again a showcase of the limitless possibilities the documentary form offers filmmakers to pursue creative expression and non-traditional journalism. The films represent the visions of fifteen talented people and the promise of the exciting careers that lay ahead of them.

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

Festival Jury

Eric Hynes is a New York-based film critic and reporter, as well as Curator of Film at Museum of the Moving Image. He has written for the New York Times, Film Comment, Rolling Stone, IndieWire, Slate, the Village Voice, and Time Out New York. Since 2004 he has been a staff writer for the online film journal Reverse Shot, where he’s also the host and co-producer of the Reverse Shot Talkies video series.

Tabitha Jackson is an independent film executive and arts advocate. She is the first woman and person of color to have been appointed  director of the Sundance Film Festival. As Festival Director she re-imagined and led two technologically innovative and radically accessible pandemic editions which expanded the possibilities of what a film festival can be, and who it can be for. Between 2013 and 2020  she led the  Documentary Film Program at the Sundance Institute, rethinking traditional project support in favor of more holistic artist-centered  models,  and advocating for bold creativity and formal innovation in nonfiction cinema.

Nanfu Wang is an award-winning Chinese filmmaker based in the U.S. Wang directed and produced the feature documentaries Hooligan Sparrow (Sundance 2016), I Am Another You (SXSW 2017, Special Jury Prize winner), One Child Nation (Sundance 2019, Grand Jury Prize Winner, Amazon), and In the Same Breath (Sundance 2021, HBO). Most recently, Wang directed and executive produced Mind Over Murder, a six-episode documentary series for HBO.

Films

A Function Of Forgetting

dir. Madison McMillen

Twenty years after life-saving brain surgery left him with permanent memory loss and in the wake of his mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, a filmmaker and her father explore what it means to remember when forgetting is inevitable.  

Bubble Man

dir. Maggie Lenox

A staple of Columbia, Missouri, Don Jourdan is best known for the joy he brings to the community making bubbles at 9th and Broadway every Saturday. However, Jourdan has more that he wants to share. The bubbleman tells a lifetime of stories.

The Cloud Between Us

dir. Josh Ellenburg

Diprosopus is a rare genetic disorder that is known to affect one living person–Tres Johnson, the most unique siamese twin in the world. After years of frustration with the treatment of Tres’ seizures and countless doctors visits that felt like the medical industry was not listening, Tres’ mother Brandy decided to take a new route. Their journey has taken them 1,000 miles away from home and given them a voice to share their experience and their truth… “There is a cure that is pure.”

The Disappearing Tales

dir. Valeryia Zakharyk

A collective portrait of the Belarusian community in the US trying to preserve the vanishing culture of their homeland. The disappearing tales passed through the generations with ancient rituals, games,dances, and songs. The tales about light winning over the darkness and the spring that comes even after the coldest winter.

Exposed

dir. Katie Kriz

What happens when the greatest source of life becomes the biggest threat to living?Exposed documents the realities of the rare disease, Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), characterized by an “intense allergy to sunlight." After half a century, one woman continues to find meaning and purpose in the absence of light.

Gaze

dir. Morgan Hadley

This film is a reflection of exploitative power dynamics as it takes a meta-approach to the embodied experience of the male gaze. Inescapable and predatory, this phenomenon affects the way in which women internally visualize themselves and outwardly interact with the world. “Gaze” is deeply rooted in the collective need to heal.

WINNER, SPECIAL JURY AWARD FOR CINEMATOGRAPHY

Guardians

dir. Kelsey Rightnowar

Guardians is a snapshot into the lives of two sisters caring for their mother twelve years after a traumatic brain injury. Blending present footage with family photos and Hi8 tapes, filmmaker Kelsey Rightnowar details the roles she and her sister play as their mother’s legal guardians, using their 27-year-old horse Prince as the anchor. The film is about love, memory and what it looks like to advocate for a parent living in a nursing home in the United States in 2023.

Home

dir. Beatričė Bankauskaitė

Brandie, a nurse of 20 years and a single mom, returns to her hometown during the pandemic but cannot find an affordable place to live. With a poor credit score and two boxers, she is ultimately forced to move to an extended-stay hotel. Working two jobs and raising her kids, she dreams of buying a place of her own. Home follows Brandie’s journey of becoming a homeowner; it offers an intimate look at motherhood and redefines the meaning of home.

WINNER, BEST DIRECTOR (BEATRIČĖ BANKAUSKAITĖ)

House Call

dir. Cora Mitchell

Synopsis: House Call follows Dr. Ferrel Moots, one of the pillars of the Kirksville, Missouri community. After 50 years on the job, Dr. Moots is one of the only doctors of osteopathy left in this rural area who completes house calls for elderly and disabled patients.  We follow him as he visits patients in their houses and grapples with growing older and the idea of his own mortality. 

¡Que Linda Es Mi Vida!

dir. Shane Palma

Pop-Pop has long been the heartbeat of the filmmaker’s family. After escaping Colombia during a violent Civil War, he had no choice but to chase an American dream. Pop-Pop learned English, joined the Army, started a business — and buried the past. He lost his family name but held onto his smile as he built a new identity. ¡Que Linda Es Mi Vida! explores the joyful, imaginative and poignant presence of Jairo “Pop-Pop” Palma through endearing vignettes and his grandson’s reflections.

Sharp Ends

dir. Kennedy McGilvery

A young black journalist uncovers the story of a seemingly forgotten trailblazer who challenged the Missouri School of Journalism to admit its first Black student. Determined to retrieve footage of Lucile Bluford and understand why she is drawn to her, the young journalist expunges on a multi-generational journey to interlock the voices of generations to make sense of herself, of the evolution of racism and of the reality of being Black in America.

Small Changes

dir. Maya Bell

Small Changes follows a newly single mother as she trades her successful 2 acre farm for 71 acres of empty land and a dream. After the birth of her oldest daughter, Erica Parker took out all her savings and bought a small property. With very little agriculture experience, she and her husband grew a thriving market garden. In 2019, the pair bought 71-acres with the hope of creating a sustainable living community. Now she is alone with three young daughters to raise, a school bus to live in and an ambitious project ahead of her. 

WINNER, BEST FILM

Taylor: A Portrait Of Becoming

dir. Sean Frost

While navigating a career in television news, a former Buzzfeed comedian confronts the reality of being gender non-conforming in the Midwest. This coming-of-identity film meets Taylor at a pivotal moment in their life; post-internet fame, dating after divorce, and their continual fight for visibility. Taylor: A Portrait of Becoming sheds light on the challenges faced by those who identify outside the gender binary in a conservative community.

Tilted Arc

dir. Baxter Stein

In 1981, minimalist sculptor Richard Serra installed a 120-foot-long wall of unfinished steel that cut New York's Federal Plaza in half. The artwork became a lightning rod for controversy, leading to heated debates and a public trial to determine the fate of the sculpture. Tilted Arc, named after the installation, uses archival footage to explore both Serra's eccentric but zealous defense of his art and his opposition's comic ignorance and absurd vendetta against minimalism. Tilted Arc asks the question: What is the function of public art in our society?

West

dir. Bradford Siwak

This film is a journey tracing the westward, suburban relocation of United Hebrew, the first synagogue west of the Mississippi River. At the Gateway to the West, the modern American Dream meets the frontier of the country’s ideological identities. Voices from St. Louis’ Jewish community—and the filmmaker’s family, specifically—accompany the visual of the changing landscape.

WINNER, STACEY WOELFEL AWARD FOR INNOVATIVE JOURNALISM