Traverse City Film Festival, to be held July 27 – August 1, 2010

Two Big Opening Night Films — Focus Features’ “The Kids Are All Right” and The Weinstein Co.’s “Nowhere Boy” to Kick Off Festival

Over 100 Films and Filmmakers Slotted from Countries as Diverse as Iran, Cuba and Vietnam

TRAVERSE CITY July 9, 2010 – Traverse City Film Festival founder Michael Moore has announced the line-up for the 2010 edition of the festival, now in its 6th record-breaking year.

Moore, the Academy Award-winning director of “Bowling for Columbine” and” “Capitalism: A Love Story,” launched the Traverse City Film Festival in 2005 in an aim to bring often-undistributed national and international films to the public in this remote area of Michigan.

The festival will be held from July 27 to August 1.

“You might call this year’s fest a brazen, incendiary celebration of art, and specifically, the art of cinema,” said Moore. “Cinema that is not afraid to take risks, to challenge the conventional wisdom, to move an audience so profoundly that everyone will feel transported to a place where one can think and explore and rebel.”

Held in downtown Traverse City, Michigan on the shores of Lake Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay, the Traverse City Film Festival is quickly becoming one of the most renowned independent film festivals in the country. It has gained a reputation for attracting the best in independent world cinema.

Along with an assortment of over 100 films, this year’s festival boasts favorites such as an expanded film school schedule, daily free panel discussions, an array of parties and other special events including a series of free films, on a huge outdoor screen set against the beautiful Traverse City waterfront, which has been expanded and will take place Tuesday through Sunday nights.

New to the festival this year, the University of Michigan is teaming up with the Traverse City Film Festival to teach filmmaking and prepare students for jobs in the film industry. In addition, U of M faculty members will serve as moderators, panelists and jurors in the first step toward a broader participation in the film festival.

“Along with realizing our goal of becoming a major international film festival, we now can draw on the educational support of the University of Michigan to lend its expertise to our educational initiatives,” said Moore. “We celebrate great filmmaking, aim to help budding filmmakers on their paths, and also want to offer opportunities for the general public to deepen its appreciation of film.”

Early tickets will go on sale to the 3,000-strong Friends of the Traverse City Film Festival this Sunday, July 11, and then to the general public on
Saturday, July 17.

2010 Festival Highlights:

- The festival kicks-off opening night for the first time with TWO brand new films: Focus Features’ “The Kids Are All Right” starring Annette Benning and Julianne Moore, and the Weinstein Co.’s John Lennon biopic, “Nowhere Boy.” “We are doing two opening night movies this year,” said festival executive director Deb Lake, “to accommodate the overwhelming demand for tickets for what we expect to be our fifth straight year of record-breaking sales.”

- Luminaries of the Indie Film Industry: Two of the most important leaders of independent movies for the last 30 years, the co-presidents of Sony Pictures Classics, Michael Barker and Tom Bernard — the men who brought us this year’s “The Secret in Their Eyes” and “Please Give” — will be in attendance and accept an award for their work.

- Newly Expanded TCFF Film School: The number of film school classes offered this year will be doubled and relocated to NMC’s Scholars Hall. New to this year¹s festival will be a master class with animator and one of America’s great all time artists, Bill Plympton. Plympton also has a short in this year’s festival.

- A Tribute to The Beatles: Rare prints of “A Hard Days Night” and “Help!” will be screened in addition to the aforementioned new feature based on John Lennon and The Beatles’ formative years. This year is the 40th anniversary of the breakup of The Beatles.

- Music, Music, Music: In addition to the Beatles celebration, a documentary on the group Rush will be screened. For classical music lovers, don¹t miss “The Concert.” And once again the festival will present a newly restored silent film classic, “The Last Command,” with a LIVE orchestra — in this case the acclaimed Alloy Orchestra from New York City.

- Our Favorite Filmmakers Return: As part of a sizeable group of films by returning filmmakers, two U.S. Premieres of foreign documentaries with the directors present will take place: “Draquila – Italy Trembles” by Traverse City Film Festival board member Sabina Guzzanti and “Czech Peace” by the Eastern European mischief-makers who were the hit of the first festival in 2005 with “Czech Dream.”

- A Salute to Cuban Film: Cuban filmmakers and their films are coming to the festival as part of a special spotlight on a country with a vibrant and highly undiscovered film industry.

- 3D Comes to TC: 3D comes to the festival for the first time, but not to sell inane action films or rip the public off with outrageous ticket prices. The unconventionally hilarious “Cane Toads: The Conquest” and the mind-blowing concert doc “U2 3D” will be presented.

- Short Films Get Their Due: This year two of the most acclaimed and prominent filmmakers of the short film genre will come to Traverse City –Jon Alpert and Academy Award nominee Rory Kennedy. – TCFF Outdoor Film Forums: 10 festival screenings will be part of a new Film Forum series. After the movie, festival-goers can participate in free after-the-movie community discussions in the round at the festival¹s outdoor Film Lounge in Lay Park on Union Street.

- Free Outdoor Films on the Bay in Open Space Park: “Twister,” “Finding Nemo,” “Help!,” “Raising Arizona,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and “Mary Poppins” will all be shown on the giant screen in Open Space on the Bay, expanding the popular family film series by a night.

Admission prices to regular movies are $9.50. Opening and closing night films are $25, with opening and closing night parties ticketed separately at $50. Friends of the Traverse City Film Festival receive half off opening and closing night party tickets.

The entire festival schedule can be viewed at www.traversecityfilmfestival.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),who runs the festival and serves as president of the board of directors. Other board members are filmmakers Larry Charles (director, “Borat”), Terry George (director, “Hotel Rwanda”), Sabina Guzzanti (director, “Viva Zapatero!”), and Christine Lahti (actor, “Running on Empty”), as well as photographer John Robert Williams and New York Times best-selling author Doug Stanton, both Traverse City residents.

Media Contact:
Melissa Grant
melissagrant05@yahoo.com

A list of the 2010 Traverse City Film Festival Films:

OPEN SPACE
Twister
Finding Nemo
Help!
Raising Arizona
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Mary Poppins

OPENING AND CLOSING NIGHT
The Kids Are All Right
Nowhere Boy
The Girl Who Played With Fire

TCFF 3D!
Cane Toads: The Conquest
U2 3D

COMEDY & DRAMA FROM HOME & ABROAD
Apart Together
A Brand New Life
Castaway on the Moon
Cherry
Cherry Blossoms
The Concert
Farsan
The French Kissers
The Happy Poet
Heartbreaker
In the Beginning
The Infidel
Lebanon, PA
Legacy
The Man Next Door
Me and Orson Welles
Mid-August Lunch
Please Give
The Secret in Their Eyes
Solitary Man
Tiny Furniture
The Trotsky
Welcome
When We Leave
Will You Marry Us?

DANGEROUS DOCS
8: The Mormon Proposition
11/4/08
12th & Delaware
American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
Auto*Mate
Budrus
Cleanflix
Collapse
Czech Peace
Draquila – Italy Trembles
The Elephant in the Living Room
GasLand
Google Baby
Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suess
His & Hers
How to Fold a Flag
Iranian Cookbook
The Miscreants of Taliwood
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
The Oath
Restrepo
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
Smile ‘Til It Hurts
South of the Border
Teenage Paparazzo
The Tillman Story
Waiting for “Superman”

MIDNIGHT
Shorts for Midnight
Clash
Tucker & Dale vs Evil
Zonad

A SALUTE TO CUBAN FILM
Dreaming in Blue
Horn of Plenty
Strawberry and Chocolate
Viva Cuba!

SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Dodsworth: Jeff Garlin’s Gems
Mike¹s Surprise
Reel Injun
The Last Command

KIDS FEST
The Secret of Kells
Kirikou and the Sorceress
Oblivion Island
Eleanor’s Secret

THE BEATLES AT THE MOVIES (A 40TH ANNIVERSARY)
A Hard Day’s Night
(Help!)
Nowhere Boy

SIZZLIN’ SHORTS
Short Documentaries
Shorts by Jon Alpert
Shorts by Rory Kennedy
Shorts by U of M Students
Short Fiction 1
Short Fiction 2
(Shorts for Midnight)