Bringing together an illustrious panel of past True/False filmmakers, we will thrust our hands in the muck and get a little dirty as we debate the complexities of nonfiction and imagine a messier future. Every year, part of the selection explores films that cross borders, break the existing rules and push the form forward. This so-called “messy cinema” experiments with re-enactments, highlights complicated filmmaker/protagonist relationships and challenges assumptions about ‘truth’.

David Wilson, together with Paul Sturtz, founded the Ragtag Film Society in 1998, the Ragtag Cinema in 2000, and the True/False Film Fest in 2004, where they continue to serve as Co-Conspirators. As director of True/False, David has been invited to festivals around the world to serve as a panelist, moderator and juror, including Sundance, The Toronto Film Festival and CPH:DOX. David premiered his first feature, We Always Lie to Strangers (directed with AJ Schnack), at SXSW in 2013, where they received the Best Directing prize.​

Sarah Gavron‘s feature debut Brick Lane (2008) earned her a BAFTA nomination for The Carl Foreman Award and the New Talent Award at the London Film Festival. Prior to this her first full length drama, This Little Life, for BBC TV won her the (TV) BAFTA for Best New Director, the Royal TV Society and Women in Film and TV Award for Best Newcomer. Sarah was selected as one of Variety’s 10 directors to watch at the Sundance International Film Festival. Her 2013 documentary Village at the End of the World was shown at True/False.

Kevin Macdonald‘s first feature, One Day in September, won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2000. Many critically acclaimed films followed, such as Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland or Life in a Day. Awards include a BAFTA for Best British Film and the Evening Standard Award for Best British Film, and it is the highest grossing British documentary in UK box office history.

Beadie Finzi is one of the founding directors of BRITDOC, a nonprofit film foundation based in London and supporting independent filmmakers globally. She produced Only When I Dance (2009), Unknown White Male (2005) and The Rough Guide to Choreography (2004). Beadie has attended True/False for many years.

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/the-changing-face-of-news

In more and more places around the world it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous for foreign journalists to gain access and cover stories as they unfold. In the past, this often meant that events would remain unreported. This is no longer the case. User generated content (UGC) – and the innovative ways in which it is used – is creating a new way of seeing the story on the ground.

We will be joined by a panel working on the edges of the news to get the stories where conventional means have failed. They will be talking about the technology and the techniques that they use, looking at how content is verified, and how you can empower people to tell their own stories and distribute it to local and international communities.

Chaired by Richard Pendry, a lecturer in broadcast journalism at the University of Kent, where he is currently researching non-traditional news gatherers working in areas of conflict.

The panel:

Eliot Higgins is author of the Brown Moses Blog, which specialises in analysing social media produced from the conflict in Syria. His work has included uncovering smuggled Croatian arms in Syria, and in depth investigations into the August 21 sarin attack in Damascus. Twitter: @Brown_Moses

Malachy Browne is news editor with Storyful. Prior to that he created and edited Politico.ie, an Irish political website and news archive. He worked for the Irish political magazine, Village from 2006 to 2008 and was editor of the magazine’s website, Village.ie. Twitter: @malachybrowne

Videre’s head of operations, an international charity founded in 2008. They work in partnership with local activists in hard-to-access areas giving them equipment, training and support to gather visual evidence of human rights violations and other abuses. This captured footage is verified, analysed and then distributed. Twitter: @_videre

Trushar Barot is assistant editor at the Social Media and User Generated Content hub at BBC News. He has worked in the British media for the past 15 years, across newspapers, TV, radio, online, social and digital. Over the past four years he has helped develop and implement BBC News’ social media strategy, as well as helping to maintain the UGC hub’s work as an industry-leading team in social media news gathering. Twitter: @Trushar

Photograph: 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com