Old Mission Culture Company, the nonprofit entity behind the forthcoming Traverse City edition of Marquette’s popular Fresh Coast Film Festival, has announced the program for this year’s inaugural event. The festival is scheduled to run from Thursday, April 30 through Sunday, May 3, and will include over 50 films programmed across seven venues. All-access weekend passes for the festival are already sold out, but day passes and individual tickets are now on sale.

The Ticker broke the news last fall that local cinephile Joseph Beyer had struck a deal with the founders of the Fresh Coast Film Festival to bring the outdoor-centric film festival to Traverse City. The festival focuses mostly on documentaries, and the TC version will feature both standalone screenings of documentary features and various “shorts programs,” which combine multiple short films into complementary mixtape-like collections. A few of those shorts programs showcase films made by local students, including pupils of the film and new media program at the Northwest Education Services Career-Tech Center and the visual communications program at Northwestern Michigan College.

Other highlights of the Traverse City festival will include the northern Michigan premiere of Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching, an acclaimed birding documentary from 2025; and two Michigan premiere screenings of Nuisance Bear, a documentary about polar bears that won the Grand Jury Prize at the recent 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

In addition to film screenings, the Fresh Coast Film Festival: Traverse City will include artist panels, parties, outdoor tours, and more.

A detailed schedule for the upcoming film festival and tickets are available on the Old Mission Culture Company website.