Madonna to appear at Traverse City Film Festival

Will present new documentary "I Am Because We Are" Saturday, August 2, at Historic State Theatre

Tickets for Madonna Event go on sale June 7

Traverse City, Mich. (May 23, 2008) - Five hundred and forty lucky film fans will get to see the all-time queen of popular music -- the one and only, Madonna -- live in person when she brings her new documentary, "I Am Because We Are," to the Traverse City Film Festival this summer.

Madonna will travel to Traverse City on Saturday, August 2, for a gala screening of her new film at the town's historic State Theatre. Tickets for the event will go on sale on June 7, with details to be announced soon.

"We are both honored and thrilled to welcome Madonna to Traverse City," said Michael Moore, who founded the festival in 2005. "I saw her film a month ago and was so deeply moved in a way that rarely happens with movies these days. I asked her immediately if she would come to our festival and she said, 'yes.' I have known her for years and she is truly one of the most caring and generous people I have met. Her presence here in Traverse City will have a profound impact on people.

"One thing's for sure, Front Street (in downtown Traverse City) will never be the same again!"

Festival executive director Deb Lake said that details about obtaining tickets will be released next week. Festival organizers predict that tickets for the event will be snapped up immediately.

"We are usually mobbed by large crowds the day tickets to the festival go on sale," said Lake. "We expect the desire to see Madonna will take us from mob to riot. That's why tickets to her film will go on sale a month before tickets for the rest of the films in the festival."

Madonna, currently in rehearsals for her upcoming tour (her new album, "Hard Candy," debuted three weeks ago at number one in the US and 26 other countries), is expected to fly in on August 2nd, just for the screening. "To take time off from preparing for a worldwide tour which begins that same month -- well, this is not something that is easy to do," observed Moore. "But she is very committed to this film and to making the rest of us aware of the world that is not right outside our own window."

"I Am Because We Are," which had its world premiere last month at the Tribeca Film Festival, is Madonna's personal journey and meditation about the African country of Malawi, a nation devastated by poverty and disease but filled with a desire to overcome all that it faces. The documentary has been described as "searing," "thoughtful," and "powerful." The film features Bishop Desmund Tutu, President Bill Clinton, and author/activist Jeffery Sachs. The film is also a love letter to the home country of Madonna's adopted son David.

The Madonna coup is just the first of many surprises Moore and company have up their sleeves for this year's film festival. Now in its fourth year, the Traverse City Film Festival has grown to become one of the largest film festivals in the Midwest, and one of the most respected in the country. Last year, there were over 80,000 admissions to nearly 100 screenings, a number of them U.S. or world premieres. The festival is devoted to showing "just great movies" and preserving the art of cinema that its founders believe "has been debased and homogenized by Hollywood for far too long." A special emphasis is given to foreign films, American independents, documentaries, and "those films which have been overlooked but deserve the attention of a public starved to see a good movie."

To celebrate the visit of Madonna, who was born in Bay City, Michigan, and raised in Rochester, Michigan, the TCFF will also, on the night of her appearance, show a free "Madonna film" -- "A League of Their Own" -- in the "Open Space," a large city park that sits on Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay. Festival organizers expect 10,000 people to attend the outdoor movie, one of five free movies that will be shown under the stars during the week of the festival, July 29-August 3.

According to Guinness Book of World Records, Madonna is the "world's most successful female recording artist of all time." She has had seven number one albums in the US and over 190 number one singles on various US and worldwide charts, and has sold well over 200 million albums globally. She is ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America as the "Best Selling Female Rock Artist of the Twentieth Century," and on March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

She has appeared in many films including "Desperately Seeking Susan," "Truth or Dare," "Dick Tracy," "Shadows and Fog," and "Evita." She also directed her first fiction feature this year, "Filth and Wisdom." It premiered in February at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Madonna is also the best-selling children's author of "The English Roses," "Mr. Peabody's Apples," "Yakov and the Seven Thieves," "The Adventures of Abdi," and "Lotsa De Casha."

She has been involved in numerous charitable activities over the years, including work for Afghanistan Relief Organization, American Foundation for AIDS Research, Children in Need, H.E.L.P. Malawi, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Millennium Promise Alliance, Treatment Action Campaign, and the UN Millennium Project. She is now heading up Raising Malawi, which helps orphans in one of the poorest countries in the world by providing water, food, medical care, and schooling.

The Traverse City Madonna event will take place in the festival's home theater, which is owned and operated as a year-round art house by the TCFF. The festival was given the State Theatre by the local Rotary Charities Club, which was responsible for its upkeep during the decade when it was closed. First opened as the "Lyric Theater" in 1916, the State Theatre has been restored to its early 20th-century look with 21st century technology. Hundreds of community residents worked on the 2007 renovation project, and now these same volunteers run the State. Opened last November 17, the State has had over 75,000 admissions and a box office gross of over a half-million dollars. Many weeks it is in the top 20 theaters in the country for the movie it is showing (last week's film, "Flawless," found the State Theatre as the number two theater in the country for that movie's box office take).

About the Traverse City Film 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 also owns and operates a year-round, community-based, mission driven art house movie theater, the State Theatre. Founded by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore and co-founders local photographer John Robert Williams and New York Times best-selling author Doug Stanton, with filmmakers Larry Charles and Terry George rounding out the Board of Directors, the festival brings films and filmmakers from around the world to northern Michigan.

News Archives and Media Information