Gabriel Boyer

I had recently arrived back stateside from China. Ben & Jerry’s seemed like something you should only eat on your wedding day, and the idea of a pile of meat between two pieces of bread seemed just gross. American supermarkets looked like the supermarkets of royalty, so pristine, so many beautifully packaged and meaty cuts of meat. There is something about the absence of fat in the marketplace. It says, This is a country where no one starves.

I had flown into San Francisco, and from there to Oregon, then Missouri and Chicago, but right now we’re at the True/False Film Festival, and I am staying with my brother in Columbia, MO, because there are three films I want to discuss from that festival. If you have not seen these films, you may want to cease reading this article now as there will be spoilers. How is it possible for there to be spoilers in documentary films? This is one of the things I have learned! The three films are, Stories We Tell, The Act of Killing, and The Institute.