TEHRAN -- Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival is dedicating special sections to films from the Middle East in “Greetings from Tehran” and “Palestine and Vine”.

The “Greetings from Tehran” section of the festival features Asghar Farhadi’s “About Elly” a film which starts as an innocent weekend on the Caspian Sea but turns mysterious when Elly disappears, and “Football Under Cover,” a family film about a women’s soccer team.
“Palestine and Vine” features four Palestinian movies, including “Laila’s Birthday,” about a dad trying to keep his promise to bring a cake home for his daughter’s birthday, and “Rachel,” a documentary about Rachel Corrie, the 22-year-old American who was killed while trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip. Corrie’s parents will be here for the screening, Moore said.
Documentaries and movies from Tehran, Texas and Norway, and short movies by filmmakers help make up the lineup of 121 movies this year. There are 71 features and 50 shorts on this year’s schedule. The film festival runs from July 28 to August 2.
Erik Poppe’s “Troubled Water” (De Usynlige) will serve as the opening-night film of Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan. The Norwegian film centers on a young man, just released from prison, who is forced to confront his past.
“It’s an almost perfect piece of filmmaking,” said Moore, founder of the film festival, now in its fifth year. “It’s the best drama I’ve seen this year.”
Among the filmmakers who will be here for the new TCFF Film School, daily panels and question-and-answer sessions are Paul Mazursky, the focus of this year’s tribute and director of such films as “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice” and “Enemies: A Love Story”; Jim Czarnecki, who produced “Bowling for Columbine” and “Fahrenheit 9/11”; and directors from France, Burma, Palestine, Norway and Iran.
Among the environmental films is “The Cove,” winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award, which follows a group of activists as they document fishing practices that annually result in the deaths of thousands of dolphins. “The Garden,” nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary category, is about a community garden in south-central Los Angeles and “Food, Inc.” delves into agribusiness.
Moore, who says he’s about 75 percent done with editing his own movie, due out Oct. 2, didn’t put the as-yet-unnamed documentary on the film festival schedule. There’s still “Mike’s Surprise,” scheduled for the last night of the festival.
Photo: Taraneh Alidusti in a scene from “About Elly”, which is scheduled to be screened at this year’s Traverse City Film Festival.