Fest lineup has films from 30 countries

By JODEE TAYLOR
jtaylor@record-eagle.com

July 02, 2009 07:25 am

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TRAVERSE CITY -- Documentaries "starring planet Earth," movies from Tehran, Texas and Norway, and short movies by budding filmmakers help make up the lineup of 121 movies at this year's Traverse City Film Festival.

There are 71 features and 50 shorts on this year's schedule. The film festival runs July 28 through Aug. 2.

For laughs, there are outtakes from Sacha Baron Cohen's latest, "BrĂ?no," presented by director Larry Charles; Patton Oswalt's comedy about a man's obsession with New York Giants (Oswalt is scheduled to be here); and a sneak preview of something being worked on by funnyman and film festival board member Jeff Garlin.

"Roger and Me," the seminal documentary from film festival founder Michael Moore, gets a 20th anniversary treatment. The opening night movie will be "Troubled Water (De usynlige)" from Norway.

"It's an almost perfect piece of filmmaking," said Moore, founder of the film festival, now in its fifth year. "It's the best drama I've seen this year."

Tickets go on sale for Friends of the Film Festival July 12 at noon at the film festival office in Radio Center and July 18 to the general public. Tickets are $9; opening and closing night movies cost $25. A special section with the schedule and descriptions of the movies will be in Friday's Record-Eagle.

The movies come from 30 countries and five continents, Moore said. Among the filmmakers who will be here for the new TCFF Film School, daily panels and question-and-answer sessions: Paul Mazursky, the focus of this year's tribute and director of such films as "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" and "Enemies: A Love Story"; Jim Czarnecki, who produced "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11"; and directors from France, Burma, Palestine, Israel, Norway and Iran, Moore said.

"We hope to broker a peace agreement," he joked.

The "Greetings from Tehran" section of the festival features two Iranian films: "About Elly," a film which starts as an innocent weekend on the Caspian Sea but turns mysterious when Elly disappears; and "Football Under Cover," a family film about a women's soccer team.

"Palestine and Vine" features four Palestinian movies, including "Laila's Birthday," about a dad trying to keep his promise to bring a cake home for his daughter's birthday, and "Rachel," a documentary about Rachel Corrie, a 22-year-old American who was killed while trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip. Corrie's parents will be here for the screening, Moore said.

Among the environmental films is "The Cove," winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award, which follows a group of activists as they document fishing practices that annually result in the deaths of thousands of dolphins. "The Garden," nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary category, is about a community garden in south-central Los Angeles and "Food, Inc." delves into agribusiness.

"People have been asking for that one," Moore said. "I like it, but I disagree with the film's conclusion. But I don't program this festival with what I agree with."

The TCFF Kids Festival will feature a day of short films (ranging from one minute up to seven minutes); "Azur and Asmar," a French film in English about two drastically different boys raised by the same woman; "Sita Sings The Blues," a retelling of the Indian tale of Ramayana set to 1920s jazz; and "Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms," about a worm who gets hold of some old records and is inspired to start a band.

"We're not going to raise another generation of film-lovers if we don't show them good movies," Moore said.

Norway apparently is the new Sweden when it comes to making movies. Four Norwegian movies made the schedule, including the opening night film, a short film, and a Nazi zombie movie, "Dead Snow."

Emily Kunstler, daughter of Chicago 8 defense lawyer William Kunstler, will be here to present her documentary about her father. Other documentaries include "Waltz With Bashir," the first animated film to be nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, and "Learning Gravity," about Milford funeral director and poet Thomas Lynch.

"Sugar," a movie about a baseball player's move from the Dominican Republic to the U.S., will be screened, as will "The Greatest," starring Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon as parents whose oldest son is killed, and "The Answer Man," starring Jeff Daniels as a reclusive author.

"We were surprised by the lack of American independent films," Moore said. "The number of feature films, fiction films, was cut in half."

He isn't sure if the economy is to blame or if there's a dumbing-down of American movie-goers. "The worst movie ever made ("Transformers 2") just had the second-best opening ever."

But the "film literacy" of the local crowd has gone up, he said.

"The audience here is pretty deep, smart, discerning," he said. "They're expecting to walk out of the theater having had a religious experience."

Moore, who says he's about 75 percent done with editing his own movie, due out Oct. 2, didn't put the as-yet-unnamed documentary on the film festival schedule. There's still "Mike's Surprise," scheduled for the last night of the festival.

"Maybe the surprise will be that they won't see my movie," Moore said.

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