AOL is getting their hands deeper and deeper into the movie business with the rollout of a website for documentary films. Excellent! You’ll be able to see cool little documentaries, usually before they’ve had a theatrical release.

Viewers can stream the films (with ads left in free of charge) or they can own the movies by downloading them to their hard disks (AOL uses its DVD-quality Hi-Q service for its downloading feature) and paying between $1.99 and $14.99. The filmmakers will have the power to set the prices. We’ll see just how ‘it’s all for the cause’ they are when it comes to talking cash.

AOL spokesperson Scott Sheff said, "Filmmakers like the idea of creating a community around their films… They love the idea of connecting directly with their audience." The True Stories project will work along with existing AOL interactive community features (blogs, live chat, message boards and its UnCut Video application) to create this community. If you’re unfamiliar with UnCut Video, it resembles Google's YouTube… enabling users to upload their homemade videos to AOL's UnCut Video site. So basically you and all your strange cyber-buddies will be all plugged in! You might even be able to submit some documentaries of your own…

As of the project start, two feature-length films will be premiered every month on True Stories. The first film they’re rolling out is Danielson: A Family Movie, which is about a family that performs as an indie rock band. Partridge Family they are not! Other films available at the launch of True Stories include The Breast Cancer Diaries (about a woman's battle with breast cancer) and Ground Truth (a film that follows U.S. veterans of the Iraq war as they struggle to re-assimilate to civilian life) and a catalogue of other assorted docu-gems. So basically they have something for everyone… from learning bare-handed catfish fishing in the South to following a rising basketball star from Oakland.