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Audience Award Winners - Traverse City Film Festival
http://www.michaelmoore.com/WINNER:
DON'T STOP BELIEVIN': EVERYMAN'S JOURNEY
2012 | USA | NR | 113 min
Description
In a story for the you-can’t-make-this-stuffup files, “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey” charts the meteoric rise to fame of Filipino singer Arnel Pineda, who went from homeless fanboy to frontman for the legendary rock band Journey in the course of a few short years. After a friend uploaded videos of Pineda covering classic Journey songs to YouTube, he was discovered by Journey guitarist Neal Schon, who plucked Pineda out of obscurity in Manilla and recruited him to go on tour as their new lead singer. Director Ramona Diaz smartly moves beyond simply using Pineda’s story as a backstage pass for the iconic group, focusing also on Pineda’s hard-fought early life and his struggle to cope with his newfound fame, while capturing more than enough concert footage to satisfy even the most rabid Journey fan. Meeting the members of this band is one of the best and most unexpected experiences you can have at this year’s festival. In English and Tagalog with English subtitles.
In Person: Director Ramona Diaz and producer Capella Fahoome Brogden.
FIRST RUNNER UP:
ETHEL
2012 | USA | NR | 97 min
Description
A richly layered and intimate view into a family who have loomed large over American politics for the last half century, this definitive biography of Ethel Kennedy offers a rare glimpse into the story of a remarkable woman. Director Rory Kennedy (“The Fence,” TCFF ’10), the youngest daughter of Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy, crafts a deeply personal portrait of her famously private mother’s life from a veritable treasure trove of rare home movie footage as well as recent interviews with Ethel and her children, charting her mother’s transformation from vocal Democratic campaigner to single mother of 11 against RFK’s tragic arc. As much a family story as it is a window into a crucial period of American history, this moving documentary pays affectionate tribute to a woman whose life and legacy continue to influence the world for the better.
SECOND RUNNER UP:
BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!*
2012 | Sweden | NR | 88 min
Description
In 2009, Swedish filmmakers Fredrik Gertten and Margarete Jangård were set to premiere their documentary “Bananas!*”—an exposé about a group of Nicaraguan plantation workers who sued Dole for its use of illegal pesticides—at the Los Angeles Film Festival. But when Dole’s PR team caught wind of the screening, they launched a campaign to have the film pulled from the festival. Gertten and Jangård’s latest documentary “Big Boys Gone Bananas!*” captures their fight to screen their film against increasingly insurmountable odds, as the multinational corporation came at them with threats of legal action and used their influence over the media to portray the filmmakers as the villains. The result is a thrilling David-and-Goliath story that offers proof of the power of documentary filmmaking to combat the increasingly disproportionate power of corporations over individuals. In English and Swedish with English subtitles.
In Person: Director Fredrik Gertten and subject Lincoln Bandlow.
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