One of my fondest and most vivid memories of True/False comes from a screening from the festival's early days of what has held up — in my eyes, at least — as a top-10 selection in the T/F catalog.
Back in 2005 — the second year of the fest — director Matt Mahurin accompanied his "I Like Killing Flies" to Columbia, fresh off a flight from California and then drive from Kansas City. In his Q&A, Mahurin found it surreal that one minute he was walking on the beach, the next he was heading east on I-70 past drive-thru porn shops on his way to a theater filled with "hundreds of people" eager to see his little film on Greenwich Village diner proprietor/philosopher Kenny Shopsin.
The porn-shop bit connected instantly with audience members, as knowing nods from those all too familiar with the racy billboards littering the highway's triple-X alley took over Missouri Theatre.
It's that landscape of casual familiarity but also sometimes startling juxtaposition that's at the center of the "I-70 Sign Show" curated by local artist Anne Thompson, who also serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the art department at the University of Missouri.
