The bookseller and the painter love movies, too, and last night was the long-awaited evening, the Traverse City Red Carpet Premiere of “Christina,” award-winning independent film produced by Leelanau County friends Rebecca Reynolds and Jim Carpenter. We walked quickly through a light sprinkle, and there it was ahead, our destination.
We were not the first to arrive.
No need to stop to buy tickets. “Christina” was sold out long ago.
The line for ticket-holders, however, stretched to the west, and we had to walk its length to get to the end.
This was our view of the red carpet entrance.
Inside we had a much better view, third-row seats (I love sitting up close), center stage. The renovated State Theatre is beautiful.
Light streaming from the upstairs projection room set the mood.
Affable host Michael Moore loves to greet the crowds.
After the show, the writer-director Larry Brand and actors Stephen Lang, Nicki Aycox and Jordan Belfi took the stage--live! I loved hearing them talk about the making of the film, which thrilled me largely because it was a writer’s and actors’ movie. What I mean is that the film's momentum was not created afterward, artificially, in the editing room but built into the script by the writer (who was also the director) and actualized on the set by the actors and director with long takes, sequentially shot.
Grand Traverse Bay offered its own drama after the show, as did every moment of changing light in the sky.
Becky Reynolds generously posed for amateur photographers with her sister at the afterglow party at Martha’s Leelanau Table in Suttons Bay, but I couldn't bring myself to take more candid shots of the film people, after so boldly snapping away in the theatre.
The next morning, only memories remain of our glamorous evening, but those memories will remain for a very long time. What an evening! And now it's time for me to go back to work.
