After a 5-day smorgasbord of nonfiction action — from features about carnival workers to shorts about a man’s relationship with his pet sheep — I have arrived in Beantown on a mission for fiction. Of course, the three films I have seen so far are all of a post-Cassavetes/heavily improvised/non-professional actor variety, which makes me all the more aware of the new directions not only in making fiction and non-fiction film, but in thinking about them. For example, the film “Carny,” which I saw at Toronto’s Hot Docs, was a heavily saturated, montage-filled portrait of several workers of a traveling carnival. Using highly manipulated, “narrative” elements, it seems far more “fictional” than both features I saw here at Boston, Lance Hammer’s “Ballast” and Lynn Shelton’s “My Effortless Brilliance,” both of which were largely improvised by non-actors, including Harvey Danger’s lead singer, and primarily use hand-held shooting and naturalistic locations and situations. “Ballast,” filmed in the Mississippi Delta and following the aftermath of one twin’s suicide and the pain he leaves behind, is one of the most raw and emotionally honest films I’ve seen in a long time, and were it a documentary, I would call it a “feat of verite filmmaking.” In our strange categories that position “nonfiction” and “fiction” film against each other (even though a film like “American Teen,” — a “documentary” — was cast — while “Ballast” used first time non-actors who improvised most of their lines) the former is considered more “real.” I beg to differ; “Ballast” is one of the most truthful films I’ve seen in years.