Film festival opens tonight

Region

July 26, 2011

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Tue Jul 26, 2011, 12:07 AM EDT

TRAVERSE CITY — Mac McClelland arrived at the Traverse City Film Festival box office 90 minutes before it opened and hoped to score last-minute tickets for himself and an out-of-town friend.

“He’s a real film buff,” McClelland, of Traverse City, said Monday. “We grew up together in Jackson and we used to go to films at the (alternative cinema) Odeon Theater in East Lansing. It got me interested in independent and foreign films that weren’t the blockbusters.”

The seventh annual film festival opens tonight with a ticketed street party on the 100 block of Front Street and $25 premiere screenings of films from the U.K. and Spain. Guests affiliated with the films include water rights activist Marcela Olivera from Cochabama, Bolivia, and union members from the Dagenham Ford Motor plant in Essex, Great Britain.

They’re among more than 100 VIPs who will attend this year’s festival with the help of a $20,000 grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Others include Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash, actor Matthew Modine and former child actress Mary Badham, who played Scout in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” one of this year’s fastest-selling films, according to Festival Box Office Manager Linda Koebert.

Tonight’s events also include a free screening of “The Empire Strikes Back” at the Open Space at dusk. The Traverse City Lip Dub is scheduled to get its public premieres before the Open Space movie, which will be shown on an inflatable screen twice as big as last year’s, and at the 6 p.m. screenings at the State Theatre and the City Opera House.

The festival runs through Sunday and is put on with the help of 1,300 volunteers, said Festival Director Deb Lake, one of two paid staff members. The volunteers were to be the first to see a movie Monday in the newly renovated Lars Hockstad Auditorium, the festival’s largest indoor venue at 750 seats.

The $100,000 community-funded project included new seats, paint, floors and acoustic tile.

The film may be the only one first-time festival volunteer Jayne Firstenberg gets to see during the six-day event. The special events volunteer from Traverse City worked since May to help plan tonight’s party and five others, including a filmmakers’ party and a closing-night party.

“It’s like planning six weddings, only without the crazy bride,” said Firstenberg, a former TV weather reporter looking for a new job. “Last week there were five of us and we spent all day just washing all the glasses that will be used at the parties.”

This year’s festival features 150 screenings of about 100 films. By noon Monday 70 percent of the tickets had been sold, Koebert said, but only two more screenings of the most popular movies had been added.

“There are still plenty of tickets to lots of great movies and plenty of tickets left for the Kids Fest movies, which are only $1,” she said.

Tickets are available from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the main box office now located near the corner of Park and Front Streets. The office doubles as a retail store for festival merchandise.

Tickets also can be purchased online at www.traversecityfilmfest.org, by phone at 922-8109, and at each of the festival venues.

This year the festival is introducing a new venue, the 35-seat Dutmers Theater in the Dennos Museum Center, and several new events. They include a puzzle hunt, the Kids Fest with daily films and lawn parties at the Lars Hockstad Auditorium, and a Clinch Park Music Stage featuring free concerts by area musicians from noon to 5:30 p.m.