Benjamin's Ragtag Fundraiser

I still remember the first time I walked into Ragtag as a teenager in the early 2000s. The couches were mismatched, the projectionist introduced the film, and there was an intermission for reel changeovers. It felt intimate and a little scrappy, like someone had built a space on purpose for people who cared. I didn’t know it then, but that room would shape my sense of what cinema could be.

Growing up in Columbia, Ragtag taught me how to watch movies with other people. Films didn’t just end. They opened something up. That early relationship led me into documentary filmmaking and film festivals, and eventually back home to work inside True/False Film Festival. Seeing the organization from the inside only confirmed what I already knew: Ragtag and True/False don’t just show films. They protect space.

That kind of space is disappearing fast. As media consolidates and streaming platforms flood the market, we’re surrounded by films designed to reinforce what’s familiar rather than challenge it. The recent Netflix–Warner Brothers merger is just one visible sign of a system that rewards scale over specificity and comfort over risk. At the same time, sustained attacks on public arts funding make something clear: culture is being actively shaped by power, not protected from it. What survives is what’s safe and easily digestible. Stories that question authority or complicate history are the first to be pushed aside.

For a few days each March, True/False turns Columbia into a place where the world comes here. Filmmakers, artists, musicians, and audiences gather with curiosity and care. That exchange doesn’t happen by accident. It takes real resources and sustained community belief.

Ragtag Cinema and True/False Film Festival are more than places to watch films. They are spaces where people gather to think, feel, and talk together. At a moment when culture is being flattened by consolidation and silence, supporting them means keeping cinema public, communal, and alive in Columbia, Missouri.