08/04/2007

'A Pure Audience Experience'

Directors, board members like festival because of the setting and the set-up

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS

mdrahos@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Directors Terry George, left, and Larry Charles.

TRAVERSE CITY — Film director Larry Charles loved the Grand Traverse region from the first time he laid eyes on it, while scouting out Interlochen Arts Camp for his daughter.

So when friend and fellow filmmaker Michael Moore started the Traverse City Film Festival, "I wanted to give him 'Borat' to help raise the profile of this festival,” said Charles, director of the award-winning 2006 film.

And when Moore asked him to be on the festival board, Charles couldn't imagine saying no.

"I thought it was going to be more of a ceremonial thing — my name would be on the letterhead,” Charles said. "But I underestimated Michael Moore. He's trying to change the whole paradigm of this kind of thing.”

Now Charles and Terry George, director of "Hotel Rwanda,” are active members of the board, participating in discussions about the State Theatre project, making suggestions for films to screen and using their connections to bring them here. During festival time, they lend their presence and perspective to everything from film introductions to panel discussions.

"It's halfway between honorary and full-time participation,” said George, as he waited for a board meeting to begin in the Filmmaker's Lounge.

This year, George moderated a panel discussion between newspaper film critics and helped bring the Don Cheadle film "Talk to Me” to the festival. Cheadle starred in "Hotel Rwanda” and, like George, who once served prison time near Belfast for his involvement with the Irish Republican Army, is active in social causes.

Charles was on the opening panel, which examined film humor in times of trial, and moderated another panel in which directors of this year's festival documentaries talked about their craft.

He also hosted Wednesday's "Behind Borat, Uncensored,” showing scenes from the mockumentary that never made it to the screen and previewing his new film with comedian Bill Maher about organized religion.

"This is going to be one of the big controversial documentary films of 2008 and you'll be able to say you saw it first in Traverse City, Michigan, while it's being made,” Moore said earlier this week. "This is a real coup for the festival.”

For Charles and George, the Traverse City Film Festival is a welcome break from festivals George calls "marketing devices.”

"The public in those places can stand on the sidewalk and see celebrities,” he said. "Whereas in places like Traverse City, Havana, San Sebastian (Spain) and Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina), festivals are for the people of the locale or city to participate in and to see films they wouldn't (otherwise) see except on a DVD. And to ... discuss what is probably the most powerful media, if not the most popular.”

Charles said he hopes the film festival here continues to grow, while keeping the spirit that makes it special.

"I've been to Cannes, to the Toronto festival and Sundance and I think the difference of the Traverse City Film Festival is Michael as head of the festival and Traverse City as the setting,” he said. "It's much more an audience festival. It's not a networking festival, it's not a deal-making festival. Here it's a pure audience experience, which is very authentic and rare these days.”