YOUTH EMPOWERMENT

INSPIRING THE LEADERS OF TOMORROW

2025 was our biggest year yet for education at the institute. Between student and teacher engagement, leading documentary filmmaking workshops and focusing our 2025 DocShop panels around themes of documentary education, Big Sky has made our presence known, both inside and outside the classroom. Each year we leverage our status as an Academy Award qualifying event and the premier documentary festival in the American West, inspiring the next generation of filmmakers and empowering seasoned artists with tools and cutting edge conversations to enhance their careers through our pipeline of education programs, including the Big Sky Documentary Youth Fellowship, Native Filmmaker Initiative Film Club, Teen Doc Intensive, Filmmakers in the Schools, SPARK! 6th Grade Arts Experience and Schoolhouse Docs programming.

10,385 youth reached through six dynamic youth programs

122 screenings of docs curated for classrooms

43 participating schools

44 filmmakers connecting with Montana youth across the state

With the extensive transformation to the education system and student engagement over the last few years, Big Sky has seen a notable shift in the demand for our education programs, skyrocketing from an average of 6,500 of student and teacher involvement in 2023 to over 10,000 in 2025. As an educational institute we pride ourselves in creating opportunities for more thoughtful engagement with nonfiction media and arming our young people with the critical thinking skills to be better informed citizens. Each year we gain a better understanding of teacher needs in the classroom, where doc film can help supplement it and what stories young people are interested in telling outside the classroom.

The five-month long college-level documentary course provides interested high school students the opportunity to learn the ropes of the documentary industry, giving students knowledge of the historical background of the medium, hands-on filmmaking techniques and time for group workshopping to share their ideas and shape their projects. The course was broken up into storyboarding, shooting and production, and editing and students received special guest lectures and advice from established doc filmmakers. Spanning a spectrum of interests, four ambitious students examined topics as varied as a young Iraqi immigrant's cultural balancing act and a heartfelt tribute to a mountain town's beloved ski hill.

The Native Filmmaker Initiative Film Club embarked on its eighth season, inviting schools from across the state to engage in an online documentary filmmaking exposure centered around three curated films, made by and about Indigenous subjects and histories. Three modern-day films spotlit the strength of Native and Indigenous movers-and-shakers working to push the boundaries of their craft for positive growth and robust change, through cultural preservation (OUR GRANDMOTHER THE INLET), indigenous fashion design (ANCESTRAL THREADS) and team building on the football field (THROUGH THE STORM). The program reached 2,715 students through interactive sessions, with over 25 schools and nearly 30 classrooms participating in 15 counties across the state.

Teachers and their students received free access to the films with accompanied BSFI-made and OPI-approved curriculum. The institute partnered with Indian Education specialists and prominent Indigenous filmmakers to take a deep dive in Indigenous storytelling and documentary filmmaking with live virtual Q&A’s and our accompanied film-specific curriculum guides.

Countless Filmmakers in the Schools screenings took place throughout the week of February 19th across Montana. This interactive program allowed teachers and their students free access to the rated and reviewed festival-selected films, engaging students from grades 2-12. Designed with teachers of all subject areas in mind, the 2025 program highlighted subject areas from across the globe, from the story of a young Navajo skateboard designer and small business owner, to the exploration of traditional rug-making practices in Morocco.

44 filmmakers joined with 30 of their films in18 schools in-person and online and connected over 10,000 students with new worlds perspectives, and complex ideas through their documentaries, as they talked about inspirations and challenges behind their festival-selected films. Through Q&A discussions, students were able to ask about how filmmakers got connected to subjects, what they learned through the filmmaking process, and how youth might pursue a career in filmmaking.

BSFI is excited to announce that our in-person screenings were our most well-attended to date. As we continue to grow our virtual FITS opportunities across the state, we are excited to

We are continuing to grow our virtual FITS opportunities and our virtual screenings with robust participation from rural schools such as Cooke City School near Yellowstone National Park.

The 2025 Teen Doc Intensive was an invigorating three-day filmmaking workshop for Montana high school students. Twelve participating students came together to learn from professional filmmakers the process behind making their own collaborative short film. Students traveled from Bozeman, Big Fork, Arlee, Charlo, Harlem, Ronan, Polson, and Pablo to participate in the intensive, hosted at the University of Montana’s Journalism School, and share their own experiences and interest in the field.

Two teams of students, mentored by esteemed filmmakers Dru Carr and Drew Xanthopolous, developed narratives focusing on the evolving landscape of independent journalism and offered an intimate portrait of a small family business rooted in Missoula.

Schoolhouse Docs (SHD) is our series of fun and educational documentaries for all ages. Schoolhouse Docs films were rated for students and families by Missoula educators and offered a variety of age-appropriate, engaging films ranging from All Ages to Young Adult blocks. With over 342 attendees at our in-person and virtual screenings, our Schoolhouse Docs welcomed viewers of all ages to engage in stories from across the globe, from chicken farming in California to planting sunflowers in Japan, films selected explored a diverse range of powerful stories that awed audience members.

For a fourth year, Big Sky Film Institute partnered with the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming to bring a special SHD block to girls from Wyoming to Montana for them to earn a documentary film patch, a token of their newly found knowledge on the visual medium.