art & design
BUMPERS For this year’s bumpers, local filmmaker David Wilson set out to reconnoiter our own invisible village, discovering a handful of mid-Missouri locations that serve as thresholds for the audience’s own cinematic explorations.
Liminal spaces are moments of transition (from the Latin “limen,” meaning threshold), stopovers on the journey from “before” to “next.” These spaces are haunted by their own in-between-ness; they are neither where you have come from nor where you are ultimately going. With the unknown on the horizon, the liminal is underlined by the anxiety of waiting. These spaces may be unobtrusive, but they are unavoidable—you must travel through them to reach your destination.
Unfolding over a single take, and gently infused with a creepypasta-inspired aesthetic, each bumper leans into an excavation of liminality. A necessary pause, a stolen respite, the palpable anticipation of waiting for “the thing”— we celebrate the invisible beauty of these overlooked locales. Connecting it all is the music, with neoclassical duo A Winged Victory for the Sullen lending tracks from its aptly titled album, Invisible Cities (itself the score for a multimedia dance performance based on the Italo Calvino book that helped inspire this year’s fest theme). At True/False, bumpers exist to offer a moment of pause before every single screening of the Fest. They are not the film you have come to see, but their role in clearing the path for what’s to come is still vital. We invite you to engage in some micromeditation within our very own liminal spaces. 69
