YOUTH EMPOWERMENT

INSPIRING THE LEADERS OF TOMORROW

Big Sky Film Institute has continued to strengthen and foster connections with students, educators and filmmakers across Montana 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.

Over 11,000 youth reached through six dynamic youth programs

184 screenings of docs curated for classrooms

46 participating schools

40 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 11,000 in 2026. As an educational institute we pride ourselves in creating opportunities for more thoughtful engagement with media literacy 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 documentary 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 wide spectrum of interests, four ambitious students explored topics ranging from the power of music and it’s future through the experiences of three musicians, the personal journey of a high schooler preparing to move away for college while pursuing her faith, the cycle and routines of the work and life balance, and finding meaning in a grandfather’s quirks and wisdom as he confronts the realities of aging and health.

The Native Filmmaker Initiative Film Club embarked on its ninth 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. This past season highlighted the theme of "Indigenous Perspectives of Hope and Healing” to engage Montana youth with unique and uplifting stories of Native and Indigenous individuals across North America who honor their past, present, and future. These three up-and-coming films highlight running for future generations (REMAINING NATIVE), healing the water (MEET ME AT THE CREEK), and bringing back the buffalo (INISKIM: RETURN OF THE BUFFALO).

The program reached 1,579 students through interactive sessions, with 23 schools and nearly 30 classrooms participating in 14 counties across the state. 63% of these students are low-icome.

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 17th 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 for educators across all subject areas, the 2026 program highlighted stories from around the globe! From featuring an artist/skateboarder located on Flathead Indian Reservation, to a powerful story of loss, hope, and resilience following an American-Filipino individual coping with their mother’s deportation and the realities of DACA, to a working-class town in Scotland where a community theatre brings local stories to life.

36 filmmakers joined with 27 of their films in 12 schools for 43 visits in-person over 4 days in-person and online and connected almost 9,000 students with new 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.

Students not only watched and discussed films with the filmmakers themselves, but also participated in a maple syrup tasting with filmmaker Jesse Kreitzer, director of Sugarhouse, who mailed the syrup all the way from Vermont. At Hellgate High School, the Global Leadership Group (whose participants include refugees and immigrants) hosted the filmmakers of Traces of Home for a workshop exploring how family stories shape identity, the meaning of “home,” and how to navigate intergenerational conversations when cultural differences exist between students and their parents.

This year, we hosted 4 virtual visits and are excited to continue growing these opportunities, expanding access to the transformative power of documentary film for schools beyond Missoula. We were especially proud to include rural schools such as Cooke City School near Yellowstone National Park and St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, MT, as well as Whitefish High School, which programmed 4 full days of documentary film.

The 2026 Teen Doc Intensive was an invigorating three-day filmmaking workshop for Montana high school students. Ten participating students came together to learn from professional filmmakers the process behind making their own collaborative short film. Students traveled from Bozeman, Bigfork, Arlee, Charlo, Harlem, Moore, Ronan, Polson, and Pablo to participate in the intensive, hosted at the University of Montana’s Journalism School, and share their own experiences and passion in the field.

Two teams of students, mentored by esteemed filmmakers Dru Carr and Jordan Hoffmaster, developed narratives diving deeper into understanding life with autism through the experiences of three participants and a local business rooted in Missoula that sells rare and unexpected treasures.

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 381 attendees at our in-person event, Schoolhouse Docs welcomed viewers of all ages to experience stories from across the globe. From the infamous exploding whale on the Oregon coast, to connecting with the land through skiing in Greenland, to underwater cave photography in the Bahamas, the selected films showcased a diverse range of powerful narratives that captivated and inspired audiences.

For a fifth 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.