Welcome to the new era of the Traverse City Film Festival, founded and curated by Oscar-winner Michael Moore. 52 great movies in 52 weeks! A year-round festival of powerful, subversive, indie masterpieces made with the belief that cinema can save the world — and that one great movie can change your life.
TCFF 2025
WINTER SCHEDULE
All films show at 1pm & 7pm unless otherwise noted
FILM GUIDE
OPENING NIGHT FILM!
JAN 7
1pm, 7pm
From Ground Zero
We launch our season with Palestine’s Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film, where it just advanced to the Oscar Shortlist. FROM GROUND ZERO is a searing cinematic presentation of 22 short films all made by Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza. Ranging in length from 3-6 minutes, this anthology features documentaries, animation and short narrative dramas, representing the incredible artistic achievements of young directors making art amidst the impossible, horrific backdrop of genocidal warfare being committed by Israel’s American-backed military against the Palestinian people. Curated by Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, FROM GROUND ZERO is a powerful display of artists reclaiming their dignity and defending their land – all while reminding the world that beyond the gruesomely portrayed traumas Palestinian people have endured, they will not be silenced.
Animation, Documentary, Drama
Palestine, France, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Denmark
1hr 52m
Director: Anthology curated by Director Rashid Masharawi
JAN 14
1pm, 7pm
GOODRICH
Michael Keaton is wonderfully relatable as a woefully out of tune dad to kids on both sides of his blended family. Keaton’s character has spent his life coasting on the domestic labor of his wives and hired help; however, when his wife surprises him with a call from rehab, he is confronted with the reality of all he’s never had to do – or chosen to confront. Yet still, with the shock of his wife’s absence comes the thrill of a second chance. He can drop his kids off at school. He can interact with other parents and even host a playdate. Mila Kunis stars as his jaded adult daughter from his first marriage, pregnant with her first child and tentatively reengaging with her dad to see if his new kids, twin 9-year-olds, have had any affect on his distracted, disaffected, workaholic parenting style that she knows all too well. Keaton’s sense of humor and Kunis’ wry foreboding makes for tender and hilarious scene work.
Director: Hallie Meyers-Shyer
Starring: Michael Keaton, Mila Kunis
Comedy, Drama
USA
1hr 50m
JAN 21
1pm, 7pm
NASHVILLE
We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of NASHVILLE with this 4k restoration of director Robert Altman’s 1975 sprawling masterpiece, NASHVILLE. Fifty years ago, Altman – one of the greatest artists to ever make motion pictures – shattered conventions with this epic musical satire. Set in Nashville, Tennessee over a three-day period, it traverses the intersecting pathways of a sparkling, eclectic group of dreamers. Starring Lily Tomlin as a gospel singer mothering two deaf children, Ronee Blakley as an ingénue starlet burning so brightly she’s falling apart, and Karen Black as her rival. In the background, Keith Carradine shows out as a country music cad. There are 24 characters in this movie – and 27 songs! Everyone’s wanderings converge at a political rally for a never-seen third party candidate. Nominated for 11 Golden Globes – a record it still holds – and 5 Oscars, NASHVILLE is a sprawling tour de force and both an homage to and a send-up of 1970s America… and everything that comes after.
Satire, Tragedy, Comedy, Drama
USA
2h 40m
Director: Robert Altman
Starring: Keith Carradine, Karen Black, Ronee Blakley, Ned Beatty, Shelley Duvall, Jeff Goldblum, Lily Tomlin
JAN 28
1pm, 7pm
LYNDEN
This chilling documentary of one teenager’s brave attempt to awaken her majority-white small town to the injustice that pervades their community is one of the most brutal indictments to-date of our divided nation. In LYNDEN, Ethiopian-American adoptee Amsa Burke, a Lynden, Washington high school student, organizes a racial justice protest in the wake of George Floyd’s lynching. Her efforts and the sight of citizens peacefully protesting ignite a sleeper cell of racists and their no-longer-latent burst of hatred, ignorance and entitlement pits neighbor against neighbor. The vitriol young Amsa Burke faces is both shocking and all too familiar. The filmmakers’ access to the Lynden residents who mobilize against her protest is both impressive and disturbing, showcasing how easily a small seemingly entitled town can embrace the radical right and embolden Christian nationalists without ever truly realizing that it has adopted a warped brand of a bigoted gospel. LYNDEN is a call to vigilance and unity at a time we need it most, as we shepherd each other through a freshly fractured and precarious America.
Directors: Chris Baron & Bryan Tucker
Documentary
USA
1hr 13m
FEB 4
1pm, 7pm
THE MISSILE
Single moms can do anything. Take Niina, the heroine of this Nordic comedic political thriller who is busy working as an archivist at the local newspaper when a Soviet missile crashlands into their small Finnish town. Niina is played by Oona Airola, who won a Dragon Award at the Göteborg Film Festival for the role, and whose character is drawn by happenstance into the investigation that envelopes the town, and soon becomes a pivotal player. Set in 1984, the score, costumes and set design create a wonderfully immersive sort of “snow globe”/crucible in which Niina, as an overlooked woman of whom nothing is expected, becomes the heroine in her own story – and meanwhile just might save the world from nuclear disaster.
Comedy, Drama
Finland, Estonia
1h 50m
Director: Mila Tervo
FEB 11
THE GRAB
The most important resource on Earth is not oil or natural gas or gold and diamonds – it’s our food and our water. THE GRAB is a political thriller that follows journalists at The Center for Investigative Reporting as they pull back the curtain on the powerful forces operating in the shadows – the ultra-rich, foreign governments, and our own corporations – and this growing threat. With climate change dramatically altering our daily lives and water shortages and spiking food prices sparking chaos and violence around the world, THE GRAB travels from Arizona to Zambia, exposing the people who are racing to buy up our future.
Director: Yance Ford
Documentary
USA
1h 29m
FEB 18
1pm, 7pm
EMILIA PÉREZ
A brilliant black swan of a film that just made the Oscar Shortlist for Best International Feature Film and is nominated for 10 Golden Globes. Adapted from the stage by French director Jacques Audiard, EMILIA PÉREZ defies genres as much as it flaunts the best features of several. It’s an arthouse musical! No, a gangster movie! No, a telenovela! No, it’s a rock opera! A satire, a statement, a searing indictment, a relentless attack on how each of us sees this world. This Spanish-language masterpiece entices us into an impossible-to-ignore musical exploration of trans identity. Starring Zoe Saldaña as a Mexico City lawyer who gets propositioned by a powerful drug lord who tasks her with an unexpected job, when Saldaña’s character accepts the challenge, the consequences are reality-shattering – as we see in a series of campy, beautiful and challenging musical numbers. Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz and Selena Gomez complete a bombshell cast who are now traveling the globe collecting awards including the Best Actress Award as an ensemble at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Comedy, Crime, Musical, Thriller
France, Belgium
2hr 12m
Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez,
Karla Sofía Gascón
FEB 25
1pm, 7pm
MIKE’S OSCAR SURPRISE
Stay tuned for a cinematic treat this week!
MARCH 4
1pm, 7pm
GREEN BORDER
One of the most devastating and important narrative features of this decade. In GREEN BORDER, Polish director Agnieszka Holland has made what the New York Times calls “a great howl of a film.” The movie depicts the hope, chaos and depravity migrants and asylum-seekers face at the swampy, forested “green border” between Russian ally Belarus and E.U. member Poland. Told alternatingly through the eyes of an intergenerational Syrian family, a border guard and a group of activists, GREEN BORDER brings the migrant crisis into wrenchingly personal focus. What it asks you to witness is brutal – a little glimpse into your own soul, a little taste of what would you do if you had to flee your own country. But the brutality of this reality has a purpose and the epilogue is a perfect, damning coda that winks to the cold irony that occurs when all the roles are reversed. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, and the Audience Choice Award for Best International Feature at the 2023 Chicago Film Festival. Just nominated for a Film Independent Spirit for Best International Film.
Drama
Poland, USA, Czech Republic, France, Belgium, Germany, Turkey
2hr 32m
Director: Agnieszka Holland
MARCH 11
1pm, 7pm
MY OLD ASS
A delightful reinvention of the “body swap” genre, this film premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, stealing relentlessly serious hearts and minds. MY OLD ASS stars Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation, The White Lotus) as the 39-year-old version of her 18-year-old younger self, named Elliott, played by Maisy Stella (TV’s Nashville not Altman’s). The two selves meet when young Elliott is tripping on mushrooms with friends the summer before college. Plaza and Stella are hilariously believable as the same person generations apart. Set against the backdrop of a gorgeous Canadian cranberry farm, the two bond over the summer, but when older Elliott warns younger Elliott to avoid a particular guy, her younger self must decide what that means – the motivations behind it. It’s a film about the brutality of clarity and the myopia of hindsight, and what it truly takes to really live in the moment. It’s easy to see why MY OLD ASS was an NYT Critic’s Pick and also named one of the Top Ten Independent Films of 2024 by the National Board of Review.
Director: Megan Park
Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Maisy Stella
Comedy, Drama
United Kingdom, Canada, USA
1h 29m
MARCH 18
1pm, 7pm
WINNER
This movie is our WINNER. Imagine the Kerrigan/Harding drama but played out in the clandestine world of America’s national security and you will quickly go from I, Tonya to this movie: WINNER. This is a richly dark satire about American hero and anti-hero Reality Winner. This movies is not interested in rehashing the tropes of the biopic genre. Instead, it’s more interested in this simple question, “Who is Reality Winner?” Cast in Edward Snowden’s light, WINNER settles for nothing less than what Variety calls “a sharp, deep-dive look into the forces — both internal and geopolitical — that compelled Reality Winner to leak proof of Russian interference in the 2016 election.” Forget everything you think you know and know only this: As Variety says, “Reality Winner is just like us.” Watch this five-star movie and challenge yourself to live in the light of this reality winner. Starring Emilia Jones (breakout star of CODA), Zach Galifianakis and Connie Britton.
Biography, Comedy
Canada, United States
1h 43m
Director: Susanna Fogel
Starring: Emilia Jones, Connie Britton, Zach Galifianakis
MARCH 25
1pm, 7pm
FLOW
Latvia’s Oscar entry for Best International Film is one of those rare co-viewing treats: a movie for kids that’s also for adults. Or, is it the other way around? FLOW is an animated allegory about climate change, it tells the story of an intrepid black cat facing down a flood – that promises to be much more than that. Fortuitously landing on a makeshift boat, the cat meets other, similarly stranded animals all relying on their instincts – not humans, not dialogue – to survive; the animals don’t need any of that – their inner lives, turned inside out, are expressed through the film’s robust and mothering magical realism. FLOW is not a slick CGI studio film, and its beautiful plea is not a frontal assault; however, the children who must live in this world we’ve left them will still likely sense the questions swimming around these adorable, phantasmagorical fellow animals. Winner of the European Film Academy Award for Best European Animated Film of the Year, it was also just named to the Oscar Shortlist for Best International Feature Film. It is also nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award, Golden Globe and two Critics Choice Awards.
Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Animation, Adventure, Fantasy
Latvia, Belgium, France
1h 25m
2023 Archive
2024 Archive
TICKETS
EARLY BIRD PRICE GOES THRU JAN 7 THEN GOES UP TO $79
| Single: | $10 |
| Student: | $6 |
| Season Pass (12 films) |
$69 |
| Student Season Pass (12 films) |
$49 |
VENUE
State theatre
Traverse City, MI
(231) 600-7272
SPONSORS
