Gasland

“Gasland” by director Josh Fox, aired at the 2010 Traverse City Film Festival, on Saturday, July 31. Following the movie, Fox and two Michiganders spoke about natural gas and mineral drilling companies, and the threats their “fracking” practices pose to the environment and citizen health.

Que viva la revolucion de beisbol!

Many of the movies that come to festivals such as the Traverse City Film Festival are serious documentaries that examine real-world problems and, while they inform us, sometimes leave us with hung heads. I saw “The Tillman Story” on Wednesday and “South of the Border” on Friday, and while I walked out of those movies a more informed citizen, and journalist, I salivated for films that would also make me laugh and smile.

Enter “Heartbreaker”, a French comedy about a team of sly weasels who are paid to seduce women in order to break up potentially rocky marriages. The film had me laughing, shaking my head and leaving the State Theatre yesterday in a light-hearted mood. At the Film Maker party last night, I rubbed elbows and raised glasses with a series of directors, of films both serious and funny, whose passion and inspiration for their craft had me smiling from ear to ear.

Last night I interviewed Ian Padron, the excitable director of the Cuban baseball movie, “Dreaming in Blue”. Padron, whose documentary is a love letter to the team, “Habana Industrial” (the New York Yankees of Cuba), might be enjoying this film festival, its features and its parties, more than anyone else. He’s tickled pink that Michael Moore brought him and three other Cuban filmmakers all the way to Traverse City, that his movie has been shown to a public audience (and not on pirated DVDs, as it is in Cuba), and that our tiny, hand-held digital cameras are capturing his presence here. Ian Padron is a riot!

“Dreaming Blue” was banned outright in Cuba for five years, and it’s still censored from state television, radio and legal DVD — all because 10 minutes of the otherwise testament to his favorite Cuban team features “El Duque” Orlando Hernandez and others who have left the island for the wealthier United States (Hernandez became a star pitcher for the New York Yankees upon arrival; Jose Contreras enjoyed a productive career with the Chicago White Sox and today pitches in relief for the Philadelphia Philles, and Kendry Morales is currently a star first baseman for the Anaheim Angels). When a player leaves defects to the United States, Cuban authorities view him as a “traitor,” and more-or-less blacklist his reputation.

But Padron’s presence at this film festival is a testament to growing cross-national relations between Cuban and American artists, and hopefully one day, between Cuban and American citizens, outright. During a quest and answer session following the movie, Padron removed his “Industriales” jersey to reveal a Detroit Tigers shirt. Talk about a good ambassador! Members of the audience were invited afterwards to sign their names to a “Dreaming in Blue” poster. Because when Ian Padron returns to Cuba next week, he wants to know that this trip to the Traverse City Film Festival, where hundreds of Americans saw his movie and heard him speak, wasn’t just a dream. ¡Que viva la revolucion de beisbol!

Check out this video (in Spanish) of last night’s interview with Ian Padron:

Directing movies in Michigan

Last night I caught up with my college buddy Chris Farah, who wrote and directed the forthcoming movie “Answer This!” (his younger brother Mike is the producer), which was filmed on the University of Michigan campus — as part of the state’s financial incentive to make movies here. The Farah boys will speak on a panel today at 3 p.m. at Northwestern Michigan College.

Unlike some movies that have been shot in-state, but are actually set elsewhere, “Answer This!” is a true-blue Michigan story (“The University recognized this as a love letter to Ann Arbor,” says Mike.) It was written to include bonafide Ann Arbor settings: Zingerman’s Deli, Espresso Royale, etc.

Check out my interview with them last night at Mode’s Bum Steer restaurant:

Olive trees in Palestine

I caught the tail end of the documentary “Budrus” at the State Theatre yesterday and the Q&A session that director Julia Bacha and Michael Moore held on stage following this powerful movie. “Budrus”, which has been honored at various international film festivals, chronicles a diverse coalition of activists from the West Bank village of Budrus who use peaceful means (think Martin Luther King, Jr.) to protest the Israeli government’s building of a wall through their community. The coalition succeeds in uniting disparate Palestinian political factions as well as Israeli and international objectors.

According to the Traverse City Film Festival guide: “Julia Bacha’s portrait of communities that band together and peaceably fight for the common good in one of the most politically divided areas in the wold is one of this year’s great and most hopeful documentaries.”

During the Q&A following the film, Bacha spoke with sincerity about her experiences as a filmmaker, and her hopes and dreams for both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. She said that she had more faith in the people than she did in governments. And she said that, upon seeing “Budrus”, Americans in the Deep South viscerally compared the Israeli military’s removal of olive trees (which are symbols of peace) to hanging nooses (which evoke lynchings) in the South.

Here are clips from Bacha’s answers at the State Theatre yesterday:

Directing the apocalypse

Yesterday evening, in the State Theatre’s Green Room, I tracked down Mark Mazur and Trent Hilborn, a couple young directors who already have a movie under their belt. They directed a short film (20 minutes long) called “Surface”, a futuristic story where everyone lives underground because the Ozone layer has collapsed.

Check out my interview with Mark and Trent here:

Opening night, Tuesday July 27

The 2010 Traverse City Film Festival opened yesterday with two showings: “Nowhere Boy” at the City Opera House, and “The Kids are All Right” at the State Theatre. Michael Moore and the brain trust shuttled between the two sites to kick off the gala with opening speeches and award presentations.

The owners of Frankfort’s Garden Theatre and the Elk Rapids Cinema were the first recipients of the Golden Reel Award, which will provide seed money to re-open shuttered theaters in downtowns across Michigan; invaluable funders of the State Theatre were honored; Moore recognized two Cuban filmmakers (two more were nabbed by la migra in Miami) before each showing; and the late John Hughes was posthumously given the equivalent of a Lifetime Achievement award (and we watched clips from some of his best films: “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “The Breakfast Club”, etc.).

My favorite moments from Day 1 of the 2010 Film Festival?

• The boisterous, happy crowds in usually quiet Traverse City.

• Lights, camera, action: “The Kids Are All Right” was a beautiful, moving, funny, well-done movie. This mainstream movie (mainstream actors, at least) turned familial roles on their head and could help garner greater acceptance for gay and lesbian couples in mainstream American society.

• This year’s salute to Cuban movies — a vibrant, mysterious and beautiful movie culture that many of us know little about thanks to the fruitless American embargo of the island.

• Mingling with friends, new friends, movie people and foodies during the Opening Night Party on Front Street following the initial showing. I shared a laugh with director Rich Brauer, debated the latest news out of Afghanistan with author (and Film Festival co-founder) Doug Stanton (his latest NY Times bestseller, “Horse Soldiers” is about the early days of our war against the Taliban), and gazed back at the lit-up State Theatre sign.

That’s the best part: we’ve got five more days of this festival!

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Check back often to follow this live daily blog from the 2010 Traverse City Film Festival.

We’re here, teaming up with the Absolute Michigan/Leelanau.com crew and the TCFF website.

We’ll take in a few flicks, prowl the streets for good interviews, and crash the official parties for celebrity gossip.

Stay tuned!