Traverse City Record-Eagle

2010 Traverse City Film Festival

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  • A Cherryland Humane Society donation jar and photos of some of the agency's adoptable pets sit next to pet water bowls outside the State Theatre in downtown Traverse City. Record-Eagle/Marta Hepler Drahos

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July 23, 2010

Giving back — to both humans and animals

Theatre, festival donate DVDs, space, more

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — It's no secret that the Traverse City Film Festival and its State Theatre have helped revitalize downtown Traverse City with year-round entertainment.

But the nonprofit organization also gives back behind the scenes in both big and small ways.

"The State Theatre does a bazillion things for the community," said Deb Lake, executive director of the film festival, owners of the historic movie theatre, in an e-mail. "We give away well over $100,000 in venue rentals, passes, etc., to area nonprofits throughout the year."

The Helena Township Library in tiny Alden gets a "significant" portion of its DVD collection from the film festival.

"We have a pretty good size collection for a library our size," said Sue Riegler, director. "But it's a significant contribution."

She said the library averages about 30 DVDs of movies shown at each year's film festival. They trickle in throughout the year; she's expecting more titles from the 2009 festival this month.

"People look forward to being able to see them if they missed them at the festival," she said.

Sally Neal is thrilled with the arrangement she has with the State. IndyFlix@TheState shows a documentary once a month during the Monday Community Film Series.

IndyFlix used to project a DVD onto the wall of a restaurant in Lake Leelanau, Neal said. When Michael Moore, founder of the film festival, approached Neal about showing the movies at the State, she jumped at the chance.

The group can now show first-run films, which Lake procures for them.

"I try to stay current, try to show docs that are as timely as possible," Neal said. The film festival doesn't charge rental for the theater, pays for the movie, then keeps admissions and concessions money, Neal said.

Neal said she and the IndyFlix steering committee work up a list of documentary candidates and the movie to be shown is chosen by Michael Moore. She said they recently had a couple suggestions rejected because they were already on the list of film festival movies.

Sometimes giving back is spontaneous. The State has long kept a donation jar from Cherryland Humane Society on its concessions counter, but for about a week this summer visitors also were dropping money in the dog water bowls outside.

"We started setting out water bowls for dogs because a lot of (people with) dogs congregate in front of the theater," Lake said. "Mike (Moore) said, 'Wouldn't it be fun to put out pictures of movie star dogs in front of the bowls?'"

Soon there were big, medium and small bowls for dogs of different sizes, with corresponding photos of big, medium and small canine film stars. Audience members brought in pictures of their own pets.

Shortly before the National Cherry Festival in July, a volunteer thought up the idea of displaying images of Cherryland Humane Society pets up for adoption. The move sparked a flurry of donations à la "Three Coins in the Fountain."

"What started happening is people saw that and they just started dropping money in the bowls. It was something that just happened," said Lake, adding that the money — nearly $500 altogether — was fished out to avoid water contamination and will be given to the humane society.

Lake said the theater is back to photos of movie star dogs. But audiences can still give to shelter pets at the concessions counter.

Features editor Jodee Taylor contributed to this story.

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