Dear Friends of the Traverse City Film Festival

After being postponed for the past two summers due to the coronavirus pandemic, and now, after much discussion and planning and support from you over the past few months, I have some great, great news for you today:

THE TRAVERSE CITY
FILM FESTIVAL IS BACK!!

Mark your calendars now!
July 26 – 31

Over those six days this summer we are going to show 40+ incredible movies in 4-5 theaters and the Open Space. Nearly 2 dozen filmmakers and stars will attend in person! More surprises and details to come over the next month!

To you, our members and Friends, our sponsors and donors, plus our brilliant volunteers and everyone else who makes up our audience — you are the heart and soul of our beloved film fest. We’ll be looping you in on all the info on the exciting events we’re planning and all the ways you can volunteer and have fun putting on a picture show with us.

In the coming weeks you’ll also be hearing from our new festival director, Johanna Evans, a Telluride Film Festival veteran who brings a wealth of experience from her 10 years as the film curator and program manager at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College. I can’t wait for you to meet her!

All of you know how much I believe in the importance of cinema, especially in times like these. It is, in part, the movies (especially the great ones) that are going to help bring us out of our isolation, loss and division that we’ve all been experiencing over the last 2+ years. These movies, which I treat with such care as if they were my own, help remind us of the full range of human experience, imagination, wonder, empathy, adventure — all of which we desperately need right now.

And when we bring these new masterpieces to Traverse City this summer, I’m convinced our spirits will soar, burning questions will find answers, and we will realize this great American art form has the ability to make my prediction at the beginning of this pandemic come true:

“Art, culture, the movies will not only get us through this, we will come out on the other side of this sad moment as better people, kinder people, a citizenry committed to building a more just world, and never again taking for granted this beautiful short life we have — and all the love it holds for our future.”

See you at the fest! I’ll bring the popcorn.

Michael Moore