The True/False Film Festival takes place in downtown Columbia over a long February weekend and focuses exclusively on documentary and nonfiction filmmaking. It consistently premieres some of the best documentary work of the year. Venues are scattered across downtown — theaters, churches, the public library, an old grocery store — and the festival deliberately mixes paying attendees with free outdoor screenings accessible to anyone.
The atmosphere is relaxed by major festival standards. Filmmakers are generally accessible, queues are manageable, and the city's bars fill with an interesting cross-section of people during the festival days. If you can arrange a visit around True/False (usually the last week of February), it is a genuinely good reason to be in Columbia.