The Lifespan of a Fact

by Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell and Gordon Farrell
directed by Deborah Fabbro

Just how negotiable is a fact? Jim Fingal is a fresh-out-of-Harvard fact-checker for a prominent, but sinking New York magazine. John D’Agata is a promising writer with a transcendent story on the suicide of a teenage boy – an essay that could save the magazine from collapse. When the demanding editor-in-chief assigns the pedantic Jim to fact-check the story, the lines between journalistic integrity and artistic license begin to blur, and the three of them end up in an intense and funny high-stakes showdown. Based on the true story of John D’Agata’s essay ‘What Happened There?’, this fast-paced comedy of deliberate errors asks an age-old question: Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?