By Judy Sandra
(September 2008)

Set in a picturesque resort town on the water, this international festival has film celebrities, rock stars, live music and state-of-the-art venues. No, it's not some spot in Europe; it's Traverse City in northwestern Michigan, and, in just four years, the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) has become one of the largest film festivals in the Midwest.

TCFF was founded in 2005 by Oscar winner Michael Moore with photographer John Robert Williams and best-selling author Doug Stanton, and, in 2006, Larry Charles (Borat) and Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) joined the board. This year, Christine Lahti and Italian actress/director Sabina Guzzanti have become TCFF's newest board members. The festival is run by Moore, Executive Director Deb Lake and an army of volunteers (there are 3,000 volunteer names on the TCFF database).

The festival is held in downtown Traverse City at five separate venues, including the recently renovated State Theatre and the Open Space Park on the waterfront. This year's fest (July 29-Aug.3, 2008) featured 107 screenings of 71 films, with more than 80,000 admissions. Because TCFF is run as an educational, nonprofit event, that means just regular folks. Thirty of the films were represented by 52 industry guests, and the fest offered five free industry film panels and eight shorts, including student shorts.

One notable highlight was Sabina Guzzanti's Sympathy for the Lobster (Le Ragioni dell'aragosta), which was shown for the first time in the U.S. and the first time outside of Italy. The versatile and gifted actress, writer and director was introduced as "the Tina Fey of Italy." The film is about a group of former cast members of an SNL-type show called "Avanzi" (an actual satirical show that included Guzzanti but stopped airing once Berlusconi came to power). They reunite at a remote fishing village to put on a benefit performance to help a group of lobster fisherman. Sympathy for the Lobster is a hilarious look at the often harrowing intersection of satire and politics and the importance of free speech. Guzzanti also stars in the film and calls the movie a "comedy that looks like a documentary," a film that is built on the actors using a directorial technique she calls "controlled improvisation."

On being a new member of the TCFF board, Guzzanti says, "There is a big connection to the audience here that I have never experienced before. I am very happy to be able to contribute to the festival by introducing European films to Traverse City. This festival is about going back to a real discussion about film, rather than having a festival as just an excuse to sell the movie."

Also featured, in a section called "Movies from People Who Want to Kill Us," were films such as Captain Abu Raed by Jordanian/American director Amin Matalqa (which took its second Audience Award at TCFF). "Do we really know who they are and what life is like over there?" is the question underlying the selection of these films set in Iran, Afghanistan, Jordan, Pakistan and Iraq from filmmakers still living in their native country as well as those who have expatriated.

One of two documentary categories was Dangerous Docs. Films ranged from socially conscious fare like John Walter's Theater of War, an elegant examination of Bertolt Brecht's antiwar play Mother Courage as it was being rehearsed for a Central Park production (and including a look at the life of the playright, with delicious scenes of Meryl Streep and company rehearsing for the play) to provocative films like Baghdad High, about the lives of four teenagers in Baghdad, to just plain outrageous offerings such as the comedic documentary Kenny by Austrailian director Clayton Jacobson, about a port-a-potty delivery man, that was a major crowd pleaser and won the Funniest Fiction Feature (The Bamboozler Award).

A second category of docs were Mike's Peeps, from filmmakers who have worked on Michael Moore's films who have now produced great docs of their own. Screened were Bigger, Stronger, Faster by Chris Bell; Trouble the Water (winner of TCFF's Best American Historical Documentary award) by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal; Pray the Devil Back to Hell (awarded Best Documentary Feature at this year's Tribeca Film Festival) by Gini Reticker; and The Youngest Candidate, Jason Pollock's first documentary.

Festivalgoers were treated to pre-release previews, such as Larry Charles's new fare, Religulous, which got a standing ovation from a roomful of believers; Flash of Genius, starring Greg Kinnear; Woody Allen's new film and the festival opener, Vicky Cristina Barcelona; and festival closer, writer/director Andrew Fleming's smart, side-splitting comedy, Hamlet 2.

Other events included the appearance of Madonna, who stopped by to present her documentary on AIDS orphans in Malawi, I Am Because We Are, and a live performance by the Canadian metal band Anvil, after the screening of a doc about them titled Anvil! The Story of Anvil. Tributes went to director Stanley Donen, who introduced his film Singin' in the Rain, and Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was honored with a screening of award-winning Johnny Got His Gun, an adaptation of his 1939 anti-war novel and his sole directorial effort, and Trumbo, a doc about the famously blacklisted Hollywood writer.

TCFF is not only a boon to this small town, but also serves to draw attention to the state's burgeoning film industry, which was boosted by the recent 40 percent tax credit incentives for films made in Michigan.

In addition, the year-round StateTheater is a filmgoers dream. Prior to the first TCFF in 2005, no movies had been shown there in almost 30 years. In 2007, the local Rotary Charities donated the theater to the nonprofit fest, and, with contributions from Moore, other local contributors and one enormous gift by an anonymous donor as well as individuals who bought theater seats at $1,000 apiece, the theater got an $850,000 state-of-the-art makeover. Renovations include a 50-foot screen and a theater organ set-up. Just days before the 2008 festival opened, a new sound system was installed that is "tuned to the exact specs of George Lucas's THX sound system."

Says Michael Moore, "I kid you not when I tell you that no other place in America - short of the Academy Awards theater, AFI or Lincoln Center - has what we now have at the State [Theater]."

Special plans are already in the works for next year's fest to celebrate Traverse City Film Festival's fifth anniversary. -MPM

Photos provided by the Traverse City Film Festival. (Top: Michael Moore and Executive Director Deb Lake)

Traverse City Film Festival 2008 Awards

Best American Historical Document
Trouble the Water (see MPM's review)
 
Special Jury Prize for Amazing Non-Fiction Film Construction
Bigger, Stronger, Faster

Special Jury Prize for Non-Fiction Filmmaking
Pray the Devil Back to Hell (see MPM's review)

Best Non-Fiction Film by a New Filmmaker
The Youngest Candidate

Best Documentary
Body of War (see MPM's review and video of interview with Phil Donohue and Tomas Young)

Firefighters Award for Excellence in Humor
Hamlet 2

Audience Award, Best Non-Fiction Film
Body of War (see MPM's review and video of interview with Phil Donohue and Tomas Young)

Audience Award, Best Fiction Film
Captain Abu Raed (see MPM's review and From the Filmmaker special "Bringing Captain Abu Raed to Life")

Michigan Film Incentive Award
(aka Should Have Been Shot Here in TC)
France's Tell No One (see MPM's review)

Funniest Fiction Feature
(aka The Bamboozler Award)
Kenny

Best Storytelling, Fiction Film
The Pope's Toilet

Best American Indie, Fiction Film
Frozen River

Best Foreign Indie, Fiction Film
The Grocer's Son

Best of Fest, Fiction Film
Captain Abu Raed (see MPM's review and From the Filmmaker special "Bringing Captain Abu Raed to Life")
 
Stanley Kubrick Prize for Bold and Innovative Filmmaking
Theater of War

Special Founder's Prize for Shorter than Feature-Length Film
Profit motive and the whispering wind

Founder's Prize
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame

Fiction Jury
Bob Bahle, Chair
Rich Brauer
Tracy Kurtz
Rebecca Reynolds
Michael Mittelstaedt

Non-Fiction Jury
Aaron Olson, Chair
Lisa Rosendahl
Kathy Gibbons