Montana Debut

Film Premiere: A Journey of Understanding in Mississippi Queen

“When I first fell in love I was 17, and it happened to be with a girl. The news hit hard. They’d pray and pray and pray over me. There was a lot of anger and fear. And even a gun. In the South I was taught to love God first and then you love your family second, and I did. And I was really good at it.”

So begins the heartfelt and gripping documentary Mississippi Queen from Missoula filmmaker Paige Williams. The award-winning film, which follows Williams as she delves into her past and fits the jagged pieces into a livable whole, has its Montana premiere tonight as part of Pride Week activities.

The event at the Wilma Theatre kicks off at 7 p.m. and includes live music by Mississippi Queen composer John Floridis and Jenn Adams, whose music is also featured in the film.

The hour-long movie starts at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $5 and includes appetizers and talkback following the screening. The film will also be shown June 20 at the Red Lion Fireside Room in Kalispell, at noon. Proceeds will benefit Montana PRIDE 2009.

media & conservation

International Wildlife Film Festival Begins Saturday

The 31st International Wildlife Film Festival begins Saturday in Missoula and rolls through next week. This year's theme is The Changing Planet: A Global Evolution in Media & Conservation.

Special events include a Western barn dance Tuesday sponsored by National Geographic Television; a presentation Thursday by Alastair Fothergill, the executive producer of BBC's Planet Earth and Saving Planet Earth; and a free traveling photo exhibit and a wildlife and art show reception. The WildWalk Parade down Higgins Ave. is Saturday at 12:45 p.m.

Visit the festival's Website (www.wildlifefilms.org) for more information. Click here for the schedule of events, and here for film synopses.

Awards Announced at Film Fest

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Honors ‘Class C,’ Four Other Films

The 2008 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival awards honored five outstanding films from the festival, including one hometown (or homestate) winner in Class C -- the very well done film about small-town girls basketball in Montana by Justin Lubke and Shasta Grenier.

The winners will screen back-to-back at the Wilma Theatre Wednesday, Feb. 20 starting at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are $7.00 at the door and if it was anything like last year, you'd better get there early for tickets at the door.

Now, without further ado, the winners:

Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat

“Class C:” Basketball, Identity and Loss in Rural Montana

On Saturday night the film “Class C” premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The movie details the lives of a handful of Class C women basketball players in Montana, and as they play each other and make their way to the state championships we learn that basketball is more than a sport for them. It is not just a part of their identity; it is a part of their town’s identity. When they travel to games their hometowns shut down and folks follow the girls across the state to watch them play. At late night parties, they discuss strategy and tournaments won in the past.

But the film is most striking for what it reveals about the loss of small towns and an agricultural way of life in Montana. There is a common sadness among these young women as they talk about their small hometowns. They are not melancholy that they are 255 miles from the nearest mall, but that towns across the Highline and in eastern Montana are shrinking in population and dying.

big sky documentary film festival

Panel Discusses the Business of Documentary Filmmaking

Today’s documentary filmmakers are heading into uncharted territory and faced with trying to make a living as the landscape of the industry continues to change, according to a panel of filmmakers.

Monday afternoon, the Crystal Theatre featured “The Business of Documentary,” a panel of four filmmakers moderated by Danielle DiGiacomo as part of the annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. David Fassio, Mike Steinberg, Simon Kilmurry and Gita Saedi discussed the new features of filmmaking that continue to emerge and the old ones that endure.

big sky documentary film festival

An Ecuadorian Village Stands Strong in “When Clouds Clear”

“First of all, we are not just a few foreigners. Second, we are not guerrilla fighters; we are not terrorists. We are farmers doing our duties as well as demanding our rights be respected.”

These words, uttered by man and backed by many supporters, illustrate how a small group of people can resist a corporate influence that proves detrimental to their environment and way of life.

In When Clouds Clear, showing Monday at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, the isolated people of the small Ecuadorian village of Junin must fight for their land when a foreign mining company looks to move in and displace them.

slideshow: filmmakers' party

Hobnobbing at the Big Sky Film Fest

The Fifth Annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival rolled into Missoula on Thursday, February 14 bringing 106 films from more than 40 countries, including the World Premiere of Missoula’s very own “The Little Red Truck” about the Missoula Children’s Theatre.

Filmmakers gathered on Friday night in the Wilma Theatre's Red Light Green Room to kick off the festival, which runs through Wednesday, February 20 with films showing on both the Wilma 1 and Wilma 2 screens.

NewWest.Net photographer Emily Haas joined Friday night’s festivities at the Filmmakers' Welcome Party. Click here or on the image to view a slideshow of the event.

For a detailed schedule of film screenings at this year's festival, visit www.bigskyfilmfest.org.

big sky documentary film festival

Film Recalls the Craft and Community of “Butte, America”

A few years ago my mother gave me a photograph of my grandfather, taken in about 1953. He is sitting with several fellow miners in the rock-walled tunnel of a copper mine, their black metal lunch boxes at their feet and the ore-cart tracks curving into the darkness beyond. I keep this photograph above my desk to remind myself what hard work is really all about when I’m whining over a deadline or wondering how to cut down a word count, but I never understood what that hard work consisted of until Thursday’s screening of Butte, America, the kickoff film of this weekend’s fifth annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

Producer and director Pam Roberts and associate producer and co-writer Edwin Dobb tell the story of Butte not only with epic historical sweep (as befits a place where mere humans have wrought such immense changes to the surface of the earth) but also at a very personal level, foregrounding and respecting the reminiscences of the men and women who lived through the booms and busts of Montana’s legendary mining town.

big sky documentary film festival

Crossing the Borders of “Mexiphobia”

Mexiphobia
Screens Sun., Feb. 17, 10 a.m.
Director: Nevie Owens

"Everything's quiet, no one plays music anymore, there's really nothing to buy and nothing to do," says Danielle Gallo of Boquillas, a small town in Northern Mexico. "Everything has a feeling of destitution and despair, and it's not a happy place anymore. It's depressing."

Boquillas and other border towns along the Rio Grande River opposite Big Bend National Park suffocated from their isolation when visitors stopped flowing across the border from the United States: in 2002, three crossings were abruptly closed in the name of Homeland Security. Their struggles are portrayed in the documentary Mexiphobia, showing this weekend at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula.