You¹ll foxtrot with 11-year-olds, visit Hitler¹s bunker, live with grizzlies and fall in love (more than once) when 31 independent films light up screens for the inaugural Traverse City Film Festival, July 27-31.
The five-day event kicks off at 8 p.m. on July 27 with the opening night red-carpet premiere of the documentary “Mad, Hot Ballroom” — an ebullient and excruciating quest for ballroom triumph by sixth-graders. Closing night features Bill Murray as an addled Don Juan on a journey through his love life (think: Sharon Stone) in Jim Jarmusch¹s “Broken Flowers.”
The 31 films are all new to northern Michigan and many will be Midwest premieres. They run the gamut from period romances (Oscar Wilde¹s “A Good Woman”) to docu-biographies (“Tarnation”) and include a laundry list of award winners and celebrated directors. Included are upstarts, like “The Talent Given Us,” made with $30,000 and a two-man crew, and the offbeat, magical “Me and You and Everyone We Know.” Several of the films are expected to be Oscar contenders.
“These are the absolute best independent films made in the last year or two,” says film festival founder, Oscar-winner Michael Moore, who personally previewed and selected the roster of films.
For more info, visit the Traverse City Film Festival website.
