![]() ![]() Cutler said Lake found a sponsor who agreed to pick up his remaining tab - and then, Lake left the festival in December under what initially seemed to be friendly circumstances. Lake and Cutler agreed that the remainder of the balance would be paid before 2017 accounting closed, and after the festival’s year-end fundraising drive. (Cutler said he later spoke with treasurer Penny Milliken, who told him TCFF was $450,000 in debt.) However, Cutler told IndieWire that as long as there were signs of a payment plan, and TCFF made small monthly payments, he was willing to work with the festival. Cutler agreed to a $100,000 deposit, with an agreement that the balance would be paid by September.Ĭome fall 2017, the remaining $159,000 balance had not been paid, and Lake told Cutler TCFF was in debt and unable to pay. In 2017, then-executive director Deborah Lake approached Cutler with a problem: Another large vendor refused to do its job without being paid up front, and she needed payment flexibility. In response, BL&S started giving TCFF a deep discount if it paid the tab before the festival began in late July. Now you couldn’t find one if your life was dependent on it.”Īccording to Cutler and others associated with the festival, Traverse paid many vendors late. ![]() When I first went there, a third of the storefronts were empty. “Michael was a visionary in being able to take this broken-down, derelict cinema and turn it into a gem, which basically took a downtown that had no life in it and turned it into a place that had a lot of life. “Michael’s vision has taken a city that was not doing very well and basically turned it around, and that’s largely because of The State Theater,” he said. ![]() Cutler said he viewed supporting the festival’s growth as smart business, as well it as an investment in the festival’s mission. According to sources associated with the festival, who requested anonymity, records show that whenever Moore pushed the festival in bigger and bolder directions like projecting movies from a catamaran in the middle of the lake, or opening the Bijou as a new year-round theater in 2013, Cutler slashed his pricing to keep a project on budget. Cutler then advised on everything from wiring to sound installation. ![]() Over the next two to three years, Cutler and Lake toured Traverse, looking for suitable buildings - everything from a municipal garage and skating rinks, to a large barn on the grounds of a mental hospital. So we had to come in at the last minute and take the State Theater, which at the time was a derelict building, and two other spaces and overnight turn into a place where they could run a film festival.” “For example, at The State Theater they said, ‘Oh, we got a screen, we don’t need a screen.’ Well, what they were talking about was somebody had taken the asbestos fire curtain and lowered it down most of the way and painted it white and they called that a screen. “We were called in before the first because quickly realized that there was nobody that was part of the development of the festival that knew anything about projection,” said Cutler in an interview with IndieWire. ![]()
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