The 8th Annual Traverse City Film Festival Offers More Variety Than Ever
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (June 29, 2012) — Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) founder Michael Moore has announced the line-up for the 2012 edition of thefestival, now in its eighth year, to be held July 31 to August 5. This year’s festival will feature more movie choices than ever before. Over 100 films have been hand-selected by Michael Moore.
“I’ll stake my name that these are all fantastic movies. I’ve been very, very careful to pick really good movies…not all out on the fringe or for niche audiences, but really, every movie is worth taking a leap of faith to go and see,” says Academy-Award-winning director Michael Moore.
Held in downtown Traverse City, Michigan on the shores of Lake Michigan’s GrandTraverse Bay, the Traverse City Film Festival is quickly becoming one of the most renowned independent film festivals in the country, earning a reputation for attracting the best in independent world cinema.
The Traverse City Film Festival is also recognized for featuring prominent and emerging filmmakers. This year’s festival will bring together filmmakers from across the United States, as well as Israel, Palestine, Germany, Scotland, England, Sweden and more.
“I wanted to create a filmmaker-friendly festival, one that celebrates our art and inspires audiences in any number of exhilarating ways,” says Moore.
Early tickets will go on sale to the 3,600-strong Friends of the Traverse City FilmFestival Sunday, July 15, and then to the general public on Saturday, July 21.
In addition to 167 film screenings and events including 88 features and 109 shorts, this year’s festival includes a full film school schedule, daily free panel discussions, an array of parties, and many free events including nightly family films on a 60’ outdoor screen set against beautiful Grand Traverse Bay, Tuesday through Saturday nights.
Returning to the festival this year: an experimental film venue in the Dutmers Theatre at the Dennos Museum Center, and a Kids Fest with $1 daily films followed by a free family lawn party outside Lars Hockstad Auditorium from 11 am to 2 pm Wednesday-Saturday.
2012 Festival Highlights:
OPENING NIGHT: The festival kicks-off with two showings of “Searching for Sugar Man.” Destined to be one of the most-remembered TCFF opening night films, this is the true story of a singer-songwriter from Detroit who was once certain to become a superstar—only to end up out on the street before his career even began. Years later, a bootleg copy of his album wound up at a radio station in South Africa, spread like wildfire, and helped fuel an anti-apartheid movement.
BY WOMEN, ABOUT WOMEN, FOR EVERYONE: TCFF continues an eight-year tradition of featuring numerous movies written and directed by women. In the programs “Growing up Female” and “Films from the Early Women’s Health Movement,” filmmaker Julia Reichert will show audiences how it looked and how it felt when women captured on film the battle that was waged over women’s reproductive rights in the early 1970s.
MICHIGAN FILMMAKERS BRING THEIR TALENT HOME: Written and directed by Michigan native Dax Shephard (“Idiocracy”) and starring his real-life fiancé and fellow Michigander Kristen Bell (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”), “Hit and Run” follows a group of misfits on a hectic, hilarious and high-stakes road trip. In “Detropia,” the stories of a half dozen stalwart Motor City natives, including artists, business owners and laid off autoworkers, are given a voice by Oscar-nominated, Michigan-born filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. “Louder Than Love” is an all-access pass to the legendary gritty rock scene in 1960s Detroit that tells the story of the hallowed halls of the Grande Ballroom, a venue that started it all, featuring footage never before seen and interviews with BB King, Alice Cooper and Roger Daltrey. Directors and Detroit natives Tony D’Annunzio and Karl Rausch have crafted a celebratory tribute to a place that embodied the raw energy of the Motor City.
LEGENDARY DIRECTOR WIM WENDERS IN ATTENDANCE: Germany’s world-renowned filmmaker Wim Wenders brings two of his classic films, “Wings of Desire” and “Buena Vista Social Club,” plus four of his short films, to this year’s festival. Thefestival is proud and honored to have Wim Wenders in attendance in Traverse City.
STATE THEATRE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION: TCFF is celebrating the upcoming 100th birthday of the State Theatre, the festival’s anchor venue, by showing the oldest surviving American feature film in existence, “Richard III,” made 100 years ago. And the festival is proud to welcome filmmaker and scholar Mark Cousins with his epic film, “The Story of Film: An Odyssey,” an amazing journey through the history of cinema.
FREE OPEN SPACE MOVIES ON GRAND TRAVERSE BAY: Voting is underway now for Tuesday’s People’s Choice Open Space film. The choices are “Across the Universe,” “Beetlejuice,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Footloose (1984),” “From Russia with Love,” and “Sixteen Candles.” Visit traversecityfilmfest.org to vote now before voting closes Friday, July 6. The other films are: Wednesday – “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan;” Thursday – “Rebel Without a Cause;” Friday – “When Harry Met Sally;” Saturday – “WALL-E.”
Admission prices to regular movies are $10. Opening and closing night films are $50 or $25, with opening night and filmmaker parties ticketed separately at $50. Friends of the Film Festival benefits include discounts on party tickets. Family filmsare $1. Film school tickets are $5 and daily industry panels are free.
The entire festival schedule can be viewed at traversecityfilmfest.org.
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The Traverse City Film Festival is a charitable, educational, nonprofit organization committed to showing “Just Great Movies” and helping to save one of America’s few indigenous art forms — the cinema. The festival brings films and filmmakers from around the world to northern Michigan for the annual film festival in late July to early August.
It was instrumental in renovating a shuttered historical downtown movie house, the State Theatre, which it continues to own and operate as a year-round, community-based, mission-driven and volunteer-staffed art house movie theater.
The festival was founded by Academy Award-winning Director Michael Moore who makes his home here, runs the festival and serves as president of the board of directors. Other board members are filmmakers Rod Birleson (producer, “Capitalism: A Love Story”), Larry Charles (director, “Borat”), Terry George (director, “Hotel Rwanda”), Sabina Guzzanti (director, “Viva Zapatero!”), and Christine Lahti (actor, “Running on Empty”), as well as Traverse City resident and photographer John Robert Williams.
