TRAVERSE CITY -- A legal battle has begun between the Traverse City Film Festival and a new short film festival set to kick off in Downtown Traverse City Friday night.

The Traverse City Film Festival filed a complaint in Grand Rapids Federal Court on Wednesday claiming Trademark Infringement.

TCFF Executive Director, Deb Lake says they're asking the Traverse City Shorts Film Festival founder to change the event's name.

"We felt like we didn't have another choice. After our film festival, we saw that they were moving forward which is great, we are all about showing movies. Michael Moore sent out a letter saying we are all for this, but change the name." says Lake

The complaint states that the name is likely to cause confusion, or mistake or deceive potential festival goers, sponsors, and others.

Lake says, "They sent out an email to several of our sponsors and the sponsors forwarded us the email and asked if we were putting it on. They didn't know if it was our event that was asking for money. It is really causing a lot of confusion."

Daniel and Laura Martone, the Northern Michigan couple who started the new event say they're not going to the change the name.

"It is ridiculous, they have absolutely no case. We know this. We run the Beverly Hills Shorts Film Festival and the Beverly Hills Film Festival isn't suing us. Every major city has a film festival and a shorts festival." says Daniel Martone

The couple also direct the Big Easy International Film and Music Festival in New Orleans. They say this is a case of a larger festival picking on them.

"They're big guys, we're little. They're trying to crush us, but they also didn't expect us to fight back" says Martone.

A court date has not been set yet, but 7&4 News will continue to follow this case and bring you the latest as soon as it becomes available.

For tickets to the Traverse City Shorts Film Festival click here.