American Film Renaissance (AFR), whose slogan is Connecting Hollywood to the Heartland, has joined local residents in organizing the first annual Traverse Bay Freedom Film Fest, to be held in Traverse City, Michigan on July 29 and 30th. AFR’s Traverse Bay Freedom Film Festival offers an alternative to leftist Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival by bringing “entertaining” films to its Midwestern audience the same weekend.
“AFR is thrilled at the opportunity to bring movies that celebrate values like faith, family and freedom to a heartland audience that will appreciate and enjoy them,” says AFR President Jim Hubbard.
Dallas-based AFR was invited by local residents, including festival founder, Genie Aldrich, to come to Traverse City and help organize a film festival “to show the world the principles and the way of life that are so important here in the Grand Traverse Bay area,” says Aldrich. “I hope to re-inspire Americans to come to the movies because there are movies out there that not only demonstrate our ideals, but celebrate them. Much of Hollywood not only fails to convey these ideals and principles, but they mock them.”
About a dozen films will be shown, including classics “Top Gun,” “On the Waterfront,” “Charlotte’s Web,” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and independent films “In the Face of Evil,” “Echoes of Innocence,” “Confronting Iraq,” and “Michael Moore Hates America,” a documentary that received two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper and, according to director Mike Wilson, “tells the truth about a great nation.” Festival co-founder Cheryl Felicia Rhoads will also give a presentation on the classic film “On the Waterfront.” The Park Place Hotel, in downtown Traverse City, will host the Friday, July 29th screenings. The Saturday, July 30th screenings will be held at the Horizon 10. Admission to every screening will be free and seating will be first-come, first serve.
For more info, visit the AFR website.
