Everything is coming up lilies.
Detroit-born actress and comedian Lily Tomlin will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 15th annual Traverse City Film Festival. The festival, which was founded by activist filmmaker Michael Moore, will take place July 30 through Aug. 4.
Moore will present the award following a conversation with the 71-year-old at the State Theatre on Saturday, Aug. 3.
“As a native Detroiter, she helped to define American comedy in the 20th century,” Michael Moore said in a press release. “We are proud to present her with our annual Lifetime Achievement Award.”
The festival will screen an array of favorites spanning narrative and documentary genres, all of which support this year's theme: Cinema saves the world. It will also visit a few Tomlin-centric moments, including the newly restored 1986 Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill documentary which follows Tomlin during her Tony Award-winning one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, as well as 1977's The Late Show, for which Tomlin's role as Margo, a “kooky, pot-selling woman,” earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
Last year's Lifetime Achievement recipient was Tomlin's real-life bestie and Grace & Frankie costar, Jane Fonda. Tomlin will make a Detroit appearance alongside Fonda for a “fun conversation” moderated by Mitch Albom at the Fox Theatre on Oct. 30.
“When you and I and Dolly made Nine to Five, we laughed so much; we found we had so much in common," Tomlin has said of Fonda. "Here she is, like Hollywood royalty. I'm like a tough kid from Detroit; she's a Southern kid from a poor town in Tennessee. And we found that we were so in sync as women.”
Tickets for the Traverse City Film Festival start at $15 for individual screenings, $20 for special screenings and events, and $50+ for opening night festivities. For the full schedule and ticket information visit traversecityfilmfest.org.
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