Filmmaker Michael Moore presented a $250,000 check Tuesday evening to the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) board of directors to launch a new program that will bring independent, documentary and foreign films to movie theaters across the country.

The check - presented on behalf of Moore and his former wife and longtime producer Kathleen Glynn - represents the last of a nearly million-dollar fund established by the duo in 1989 using profits from Moore's film Roger & Me to benefit artistic groups and nonprofit organizations. The money will be used to launch a new program, tentatively called Mike's Movie Night, that will stream independent films once a month to theaters across the United States and Canada using the State Theatre as a home base. Moore will curate the films along with other prominent filmmakers and will host live Q&As with the film's directors and cast at the events. The Q&As will also be simulcast and will provide audience members opportunities to ask questions of the filmmakers.

"I wanted to do something special, something big to honor all the good over the years that has resulted from my first film," says Moore of the gift. "This donation will be used specifically to address the lack of access across the country for people who want to go to a movie theater and see a foreign film or a documentary."

The quarter-million dollar donation will be overseen and administered by the festival board, which would "like to bring a little bit of Traverse City to the rest of the world," according to board treasurer and TCFF co-founder John Robert Williams.