FILM INDUSTRY PANELS
The Film Industry Panels at the City Opera House are one of most popular festival offerings returning this year. Visiting filmmakers tell stories, express opinions and interact with each other and the audience. The sessions range from the hilarious to the moving. They begin at 9:30 a.m. and are free daily.  The panel schedule and topics are:

WEDNESDAY: Film Literacy: How to Be Smart by Going to the Movies in a
Dumbed-Down Society
Film professors from the University of Michigan, visiting filmmakers, and Michael Moore will talk about the state of movies in America – a country that has lost sight of the beautiful, engaging art that is the cinema after being bombarded with sequels, remakes and 3D gimmickry. This panel is for true movielovers who will enjoy a lively discussion about what makes a great movie a great movie, and how we can get more of them made.

THURSDAY: An Intimate Interview with America¹s Premier Indie Film Moguls
It’s not every day we get movie studio heads in Traverse City, so you won’t want to miss this once-in-a-festival lifetime one-on-one with the founders and current studio co-presidents of Sony Pictures Classics, Michael Barker and Tom Bernard. For over 30 years, first at Orion Classics and then at Sony, these two men have been responsible for bringing some of the very best foreign and indie fare to American audiences, including eight of the last eighteen Foreign Language Oscar winners. Now, right here on our stage, they will discuss and reveal all the behind the scenes workings of directors like Pedro Almodovar and Errol Morris. And to show our appreciation to them, the TCFF will hand them our Lifetime Achievement Award. Don’t miss this event!

FRIDAY: We Live in Cuba and We Make Movies
In an embargo-busting move, we have brought four Cuban filmmakers from Havana to the Caribbean-blue waters of northern Michigan. Can we do that? Is it legal? Are they bringing us all cigars? Cuba has been our sworn enemy for the past 50 years, yet they simply love our three biggest contributions to the planet: baseball, jazz and Hollywood. On this panel we will hear for the first time what it’s like to make a movie in a country that is cut off from much of the world. This will no doubt be an explosive panel, one that will be talked about long after the festival is over.

SATURDAY: Here Comes Trouble: Eight Documentary Filmmakers Tell Us How They
Did It, and Lived to Tell
It’s our annual documentary smackdown, during which Michael Moore will get some of TCFF’s great nonfiction filmmakers to tell stories that will make the local NPR station wish they hadn’t agreed to broadcast the panels! This year’s doc-makers will discuss how they make their films happen ‘by any means necessary,’ bringing in stories from the field that will delight, amuse, shock and inspire. Panelists may include Jeff Deutchman (“11/4/08”), Neil Diamond (“Reel Injun”), Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn (“Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage”), Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith (“The Most Dangerous Man in America”), Josh Fox (“GasLand”), Mark Lewis (“Cane Toads: The Conquest”), Nicolas Rossier (“American Radical”), Lee Storey (“Smile ŒTil It Hurts: The Up With People Story”) and Michael Webber (“The Elephant in the Living Room”).

SUNDAY: The Comedy Panel
There’s never an empty seat for this panel, and once again you won’t want to miss the forbidden stories of Jeff Garlin, Sabina Guzzanti, Michael Moore and this year’s new guests. A rollicking laugh-fest for those who can’t wait till our hilarious comedy festival in frozen February!

Free tickets will be handed out beginning at 8:30 a.m. to guarantee seating for the Traverse City Film Festival Industry Panels. Ticketed patrons may leave and return to line up following the numbers on the panel tickets. A maximum of two tickets per person will be distributed.