This Traveltalk series short begins in Chicago, where the narrator and his crew board a cruise ship. After a 20-hour trip up Lake Michigan, they arrive at Mackinac Island, near the southeast tip of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. On the island, we see many of the attractions for which it is famous. These include Arch Rock, Old Fort Mackinack, and a hotel owned by Chauncey Depew. No automobiles are allowed on the island. Transportation is limited to bicycles and horse-drawn carriages.
This Traveltalk series short begins with a look at Michigan's major educational institutions, which started as agricultural schools. We then visit the fish hatcheries at Grayling, which are used to keep the state's numerous lakes and rivers well stocked. After a short look at Detroit, the car capital of the world, we spend several minutes at Greenfield Village, founded in 1929 by automobile magnate Henry Ford. Included in the tour are churches, a clock tower, and the homes of several famous persons in American history. Although some of the structures are reproductions, many of them are the actual buildings they lived in.
The four grand old men of “Bigfoot Hunting” and their often humorous yet determined forty-year quest to find the Big Hairy legend of North America.
The Michigan Beer Film explores the artistic and economic explosion of the Michigan craft beer industry in 2013. Shot over the course of 18 months, the film documents several breweries at different stages of the craft brewing journey, from a 1 barrel system to 800 fermenters. From Sawyer to Marquette, Leelanau to Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo to Detroit; craft beer is making an impact. The Michigan craft beer scene embodies an authenticity and determination that not only can Michigan connect with, but America as well.
Travel into the abyss and transform your mind with chilling investigative campouts and tales from real people with real experiences to uncover the Secrets of the Sasquatch.
Wildman: The Bigfoot Odyssey is the sequel to the 2016 documentary film Wildman: My Search for Sasquatch. Continue the adventure with filmmaker and Bigfoot researcher Justin Chernipeski as he explores the legend of North Americas mysterious undiscovered primate.
For the first time, scientists from many disciplines put the most compelling sasquatch evidence under the microscope and apply forensic science to the on-going mystery. Their conclusions shed new light as to whether we have a living, breathing North American ape living in our forests. Evidence collected by the BFRO, including the Skookum Cast, is featured. This cutting edge 1-hour 35mm film documentary is a co-production by Doug Hajicek of Whitewolf Entertainment Inc., The Discovery Channel, and Bosch Media.
INAATE/SE/ re-imagines an ancient Ojibway story, the Seven Fires Prophecy, which both predates and predicts first contact with Europeans. A kaleidoscopic experience blending documentary, narrative, and experimental forms, INAATE/SE/ transcends linear colonized history to explore how the prophecy resonates through the generations in their indigenous community within Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. With acute geographic specificity, and grand historical scope, the film fixes its lens between the sacred and the profane to pry open the construction of contemporary indigenous identity.
Steeped in a rich tradition dating back to their inaugural meeting in 1897, this rivalry extends beyond the pursuit of a Big Ten title, and is renewed each year through the pageantry and colliding cultures that distinguish the two schools.
British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.
Following the success of Darcy Weir's explosively popular Bigfoot documentary, The Unwonted Sasquatch, he is back with a follow up feature to flesh out the history of this creature and it's possible Relic Hominid cousins internationally. Since the days of Ancient Mesopotamia man-like humanoids have appeared in myths and legends of cultures from around the world. Today the best known wildman tale that people still say they see roaming the wilds of North America is better known as the Sasquatch or Big Foot. But there are other well known legends of wildmen from across the globe such as the Yeti, the Russian Almasty and the Yeren Man-Ape which is a commonly known as a Chinese relative to Big Foot.
Suzanne's life was turned upside down when a Bigfoot ran across the road in front of her one night. As she tries to understand what she's seen the creature arrives at her doorstep and sends her into a downward spiral looking for answers.
In 2017 a rash of sightings of a winged creature spread around Chicago. Now, Small Town Monsters launches their own investigation into the Mothman sightings that spread around Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Is the Mothman real? Seth Breedlove and Heather Moser pull at the threads of one of the most bizarre paranormal mysteries of the last decade. Along the way they interview witnesses, investigators, and even capture footage of a massive, winged being in downtown Chicago. What are people seeing? What does it mean? Is the Mothman simply an unidentified animal or a misidentified bird? Or is it something far more sinister? The truth is here, and the answers may shock you.
This Traveltalk series short visits several popular vacation spots in Michigan. Among them are Saugatuck, which hosts a school for artists during the summer; Zeeland, where descendants of Dutch settlers perform traditional Dutch dances wearing wooden shoes; the Silver Lake sand dunes, where specially outfitted cars race; and Colon, "The Magic Capitol of the World", which hosts an annual gathering of magicians.
Lake Effect is a two-year Michigan ski film highlighting the joys of backyard adventure and the shifting perspective of Mike King, a professional skier who for a decade has only sought adventure from the peaks of mountain tops in the far reaches of the West. In 2020 when Covid encouraged lockdowns & travel restrictions, Mike's life on the road came to a screeching halt. This abrupt change inspired Mike to take the hurdle as an opportunity to rediscover the unique, untapped terrain, ski culture, and the people thriving right here in his home state of Michigan. Throughout filming Lake Effect Mike realized you don't need to travel far to have an epic adventure. Rather some creativity, curiosity, and the willingness to walk out the door to the abundance that starts right in our backyards.
Follows a predominately Arab-American high school football team from Dearborn, Michigan during the last ten days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and unearths the story of a community desperately holding onto its Islamic faith while struggling to gain acceptance in post 9-11 America.
Filmed in the white working-class suburbs of Detroit, Spook House reveals a community reveling in the macabre. Front lawns are transformed into cemeteries, kitchens become mausoleums and dismembered ‘bodies’ are prepared for cannibal feasts. Cameron Jamie’s camera tracks the celebrants as the nights become longer and darker.
In this program Jay Michael postulate a theory that sightings of "Bigfoot" in the south may be actual encounters with apes that somewhere in antiquity made their way into the United States.
A moving portrait of traditional Finnish American culture in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, highlighting that fragile community of memory connecting ourselves with parents and grandparents. It uses the “biographical model” of folklore filmmaking to tell the story of Erikki Vourenmaa, a 92-year-old Finnish immigrant, and his family living near Ironwood, Michigan. This three-generation farm family works, celebrates, reflects, and grieves together. The film explores the meaning of family, ethnic history, aging and intergenerational bonds. It contrasts between the immigrant elder, his American-born son and the partially assimilated grandchildren to illustrate change and continuity in the "sauna belt" of the Lake Superior Region. As Dr. Sharon Sherman concluded, “Loukinen’s focus on the bonds between generations will strike emotional chords about family relationships and ethnic identity for numerous cultural groups.”
Follows the story that is shaking up Democratic Party politics nationwide, highlighting the role of power and money in a system many believe is broken but can be fixed.