Join us for Fresh Coast Free, the annual kickoff event for the Fresh Coast Film Festival.

Our free festival kickoff begins at 5 pm with Marquette’s amazing food truck community gathered around a bluegrass concert at the Fresh Coast Basecamp tent at Lower Harbor Park. Fresh Coast Free’s Thursday evening is free to the public and family focused, so bring a blanket to spread out and enjoy the start of something beautiful.

Film screenings and the announcement of this year’s award winners and Making Waves recipients will begin at 7 p.m.

Fresh Coast Free is a rain or shine (or snow? j/k) event! As we celebrate the resilient spirit of the Great Lakes region, we hope you'll join us in all weather conditions. This is who we are.

Join Fresh Coast for a special screening of the feature documentary “Islanders,” in which electro-pop duo FINKEL departs LA for Michigan’s Mackinac Island. Jane and Brian, partners in music and life, brave winter’s challenges on this car-free island. Revisiting Jane’s roots sparks their creative journey as they compose an album inspired by the island’s unique charm, diving into its sonic tapestry for fresh inspiration.

Director Joe Zook and the members of FINKEL will be on hand for a Q&A after the film—followed by a special FINKEL performance beginning at 9 pm at Ore Dock Brewing Company.

Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett grew up in Wisconsin as childhood friends and now have the dubious distinction of having amassed the world’s largest collection of VCR tapes.
They’ve scoured the nation’s thrift stores and rummage sales for VHS gold in order to find the long-lost cringe from workout videos, home videos, self-help miscellany, animals, and literally anything you can imagine and beyond. The antics and absurdities from the VHS era are easy to forget in today’s world, but when curated by two hard-working comedic geniuses, it makes for pure, timeless laughs.
These former writers for The Onion and The Tonight Show are cassette tape archaeologists whose life’s work is finding gloriously terrible footage in the most unlikely places, editing it together, and creating a live show they bring all over America.
They call it The Found Footage Festival–we call it genius, and welcome it home to the Fresh Coast.