Michigan Filmmakers Shine at #GLCFF2024

The Great Lakes State Brings Forth Many Talented Creatives At Film Festival

Anthony T. Green

Detroit, Michigan Music Video Director wins BIG at #GLCFF2024. Anthony T. Green, director of the Music Video Dwell In The House featuring Sherrie Nunn Berry and Greg Pearson (producer/writer). The film was awarded Best Music Video and Audience Choice at the GLCFF2024 (The Great Lakes Christian Film Festival) held in Buffalo, New York, October 17-20, 2024. The Music Video was nominated in several categories, and a finalist in 9 taking home Best Director, Best Writer, Best Song in Music Video, as well as, Audience Choice. Notre Dame student Andrew Imai also was honored with his film The Last Vigil, and Barry Lyons returned with his documentary short film Tangier: Faith and Loss.

Michigan have been home to several award winners and nominees at the Great Lakes Christian Film Festival over the past 10 years. Walter Marshall in 2015, Heather Fairbanks in 2017, Rachel Smith with 2 films in 2020, Bethany Hazelitt in 2022, Nathan Roels, Kevin DeVries and Alan Maki in 2023, plus Barry Lyons and Andrew Imai in 2024. Actor Dean Cain, a native of Michigan, has been featured in many Christian films over the past decade, including God’s not Dead, and was featured on the GLCFF2021 Best Feature Film Break Every Chain.

Michigan has always been a home to creative arts, including those in the the music scene, with Motown’s greatest recording arts, as well as, rock & roll, heavy metal, and rap artists. Here’s a list of some musicians in connection to Michigan [ Ranker.com ] and some other famous people from the state [ Ranker.com ].

One thing is for sure, there will never be a shortage of great talent in the Great Lake State. We are making plans to host events there soon. We look forward to seeing more work coming from this great state.

Walter Marshall’s trailer for the documentary Life in Osborn (2015).

 

view the list of official selections, nominees and winners over the past 10 years 

Selections | Nominees | Winners | Ceremony

[Laurel Center] [Order Awards]

Special Online Event: Song of the Wilderness

Great Lakes Christian Film Festival

A Special Online presentation of the award winning documentary and the most requested film. The Producers out of China will be screening via Zoom on August 7th at 7pm (EST). [Details below]

Song of the Wilderness

You are invited to an exclusive movie show on zoom – “Song of the Wilderness”:
Date: August 7, 2021 Saturday.
Time:7:00pm EST / 4:00pm PST
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89368045066?pwd=T3pIOXBqVEM4V2hhOWo4L0pEL2M2UT09&fbclid=IwAR2NYVmPlr96Kdkr6XxaTOBZlY68ctmZdJA2fklJXuuVwi6KtVapHVI3rt8

Meeting ID: 893 6804 5066
Passcode: 953032
✅This is a powerful testimony of Jesus’ life being lived out, a must watch movie, directed by God Himself.
✅This film received several awards in 2018 including
“Best Documentary” at “International Christian Film Festival”
“Best Director for a Documentary” at The Great Lakes Christian Film Festival

Patricia Heaton: God Is A Creator

Actress Patricia Heaton offers her view about The Purpose in Life.

On a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the three-time Emmy award winner and actress Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond, The Middle, Carol’s Second Act) explained how glorifying God rather than herself led to her successful acting career.

Patricia Heaton in 2008

The Ohio native, started off her interview bragging about her father, Chuck Heaton, covered the Cleveland Browns for fifty years reporting for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She attended many sporting events, including the Cleveland Indians and the Cleveland Browns. She joked that being a Browns fan was much like being a Catholic, “it builds character, you know, to follow the Browns…suffering. It goes with the Catholicism.”

Heaton was raised as a devout Catholic. One of her proudest moments was her fourteen months of sobriety, stating it affected her thinking and speech.

While attending Ohio State University, she became a sister of Delta Gamma Sorority. She later graduated with a bachelor of arts in drama. In 1980, Heaton moved to New York City to study with drama teacher William Esper. Heaton made her first Broadway appearance in the chorus of Don’t Get God Started (1987), after which fellow students and she created Stage Three, an off-Broadway acting troupe.

Heaton stated that at the beginning of her career, God “shut every door.” She mentioned that when it was her time to go to Los Angeles to begin her acting career, it was detoured towards a missions trip.

Heaton said that “the first month I was there I went to an orphanage in Mexico with a Church.” She continues, “When I came back, I had a huge sense of peace that I never had before. I realized that I had been making the acting career the center of my life. You know as a Catholic, that there’s only one thing that can be the center of your life, and that’s your faith.”

“I wasn’t doing that, and I think God was withholding that until I made sure that He was the center of my life and not the career.” She focused on her faith in God and not her career because she believes she “can’t rely on those things because they don’t last. You have to know that the purpose of your life is glorifying God with your life, not glorifying yourself with your career.”

Great Lakes Christian Film Festival
Website: http://www.glcff.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/glcff
Twitter: http://twitter.com/glcff
Email: glcffest@gmail.com

 

 

Sources:

Wikipedia [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Heaton ]

ChurchPOP (Oct 24, 2019) [ https://churchpop.com/2019/10/24/actress-patricia-heaton-the-purpose-in-life-is-glorifying-god-not-yourself ]

 

Discussion about “The Reliant” Goes Viral on GLCFF YouTube Channel

In the last few days, the trailer for the latest faith-based film from Kevin Sorbo, has gone viral on our YouTube channel, but not in a positive way. Within 3 days the views for the trailer went from under 400 to over 5,500, with over 130 comments – not in support for the project, but in jest.

The Reliant (2018), was awarded “Best of the Fest” at #GLCFF2019, has had a surge in views from those curious about what the film is about, after several people reviewed and shared it, not to help promote it, but to mock it, and criticize its content. Many YouTube users posted their sarcastic remarks, to oppose the films 2nd Amendment theme, calling it “propaganda” and a call to fight against AntiFa. Within the first month of posting, there were several “likes” to the trailer.

As of this post, there have been over 130 dislikes as a result of the negative viral trolling on the page. Most internet trolls create accounts for the sole purpose of masking their identity, so they can comment on various content and remain anonymous. One user, under the account (supertacticalbacon), stated “Damn you’ve exposed the secret antifa supersoldier plan now we’ll never destroy Christmas.” The comment is one of the top “liked” comments so far. The ratio of “Likes” to “Dislikes” on the trailer is is 2-to-1, in favor of the “Dislikes.”

With mass shootings in America on the rise, such as tonight’s shooting at a Pittsburgh Christian School Football Game, should Christians continue to support and defend the 2nd Amendment? Will the faith-based community, or supporters of the 2nd Amendment, step it up in support of the project? The Reliant is scheduled to be screened across the US for One Night Only in October 2019. For more on the project go to the page on our site: The Reliant (2018)

[ BREAKING NEWS Report: Shooting During Jeannette, Imani Christian Football Game Forces Evacuation https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2019/09/06/report-shooting-during-jeannette-imani-christian-football-games-forces-evacuation/ ].

[ Fox News report: Kevin Sorbo’s faith-based action film ‘The Reliant’ defends Second Amendment https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kevin-sorbo-faith-based-reliant-second-amendment ]

Greg Batiansila (Producer/Director/Writer) @POVEinstein

Greg Batiansila is a writer, director and producer who has worked in and around filmmaking for over twenty years. His work as an overachieving production assistant led to work as an overachieving location scout, which allowed him lots of time on commercial sets.

Greg’s father, the son of a Filipino from tiny Bantayan Island in the province of Cebu, Philippines, grew up in housing projects in the shadow of Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans. Greg’s mother fled American aggression in World War II and ultimately escaped communist East Germany to West Germany before immigrating to the United States.

Even when he wasn’t on sets, Greg was writing. He wrote plays, short stories, a book on spec. He wrote articles, movie reviews, and scripts, feature scripts, shorts, spec scripts for a publishing house, radio commercials, tv ads.

Greg found himself back on sets, this time as a principle at an ad agency. He wrote and directed videos of all kinds for clients of all sorts, from GE Healthcare to AirStrip to Fiserv to the highest-rated political ad in the Wisconsin in 2010. Whether it was a parody of “The Office,” animated product videos, talking head videos…product videos shot on location all around the United States, Greg wrote, produced and worked on all of them.

Through that time, he was able to work with some brilliant cinematographers, animators, and behind-the-scenes experts, all of whom helped him gain confidence for his foray into independent narrative storytelling. The Lost Key was shot with cameras and lenses borrowed from Greg’s friends.

In 2010, Greg’s youngest daughter passed away just days before her second birthday. On the day of her funeral, his father died. Those events spurred him to strive earnestly to tell stories and work tirelessly to create beauty in a world that needs it.

Working with a tight-knit clique of actors, he created, wrote and produced three seasons of a web series entitled “Leaving Eden” that gathered around 50,000 views a drama selection at ITVFest, amongst other critical praise.

The show featured original music from independent artists all over the world. Music is a critical part of Greg’s storytelling.

Greg had 2 shorts films as official selections in our Great Lakes Christian Film Festival in 2016 and 2017. In 2016 “Runner” was Nominated Best Short Film [over 20 minutes] and in 2017 “The Lost Keys” was Nominated Best Comedy. He was also on our Producer/Director Panel Discussion in our 2017 Workshops. Greg’s project “The Shepherd” is the 3rd installment in the “Lost” parables.

 

For more information go on Greg Batiansila’s Production Company POV Einstein: http://www.poveinstein.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/poveinstein

Twitter: twitter.com/poveinstein