“Up There” @ the Traverse City Film Festival
© A.J. Malouin 2009
Leave town for a week and it’s tough to get back into the swing of things. Nevertheless, here we are. Back at last. Back from the Traverse City Film Festival.
If you’ve never been to any of the first five versions of the Traverse City Film Festival, be sure to get to the one next year. The end of July is the perfect time to visit this sand sunny watery part of the world.
Once upon a time billed as “Movies We Love,” the TCFF is becoming famous for its eclectic delightful mix of first-run must-see films and movies that, well, we just love to watch.
Must-see films screened at the TCFF that we saw include “Seraphine,” “Revanche” [“Revenge,”] “Okuribito” [“Departures,”] “O’Horton,” and “Etz Limon” [“Lemon Tree.”]
We highly recommend the last four on this list. (“Seraphine” won seven 2008 Caesar Awards, the French equivalent of the USA Oscars. For us, however, it didn’t have the “pop” of those other films we saw.)
Because of its eclectic nature, the TCFF this year also screened older, popular movies like “Men in Black,” “Hair,” “The Goonies,” “Close Encountered of the Third Kind,” and “Big.”
All five of these well-loved movies were shown for free in the Open Space Park on the shore of Grand Traverse Bay.
The remainder of the films were shown in five venues in downtown Traverse City, linked together to free parking by Festival shuttle buses which appeared every 10 to 15 minutes.
Special events at the Festival included a tribute to writer/director Paul Mazursky, who attended the Festival, and a screening of two Mazursky films, “An Unmarried Woman” and “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice”
There was also a 20th anniversary screening of “Roger & Me” hosted by Michael Moore himself, the filmmaker sooooo many people love to hate.
The Festival also included free panel discussions by filmmakers, a Kids Festival, and various programs of short films for kids and adults.
We went to the TCFF, this year, on our way to other venues in the superb vacationland of northern Michigan.
Next year, we’re going to plop down for the entire Festival, and see as many screenings day-and-night as is humanly possible.
You should do the same.