Mike Steinberg, an organizer for the Big Sky Film Festival, helped bring 130 films to Missoula. The Big Sky Film Festival starts Feb. 12. (Kat Franchino/Montana Kaimin)

Lighting up the Silver Screen: Big Sky Documentary Film Festival hits Missoula

by Jessica Stugelmayer | February 5, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

Murderers, monks, graffiti artists, environmentalists and break-dancing grandmas will soon be under the same roof with the arrival of the 2010 Big Sky Film Documentary Festival.

Starting next Friday, the Wilma Theatre will be the site of 130 films featured at the festival, which runs until Feb. 21.

Festival director Mike Steinberg said the films were chosen based on criteria for the best-made films, but also with the Missoula audience in mind. Steinberg has been director of the festival for two years, during which time it has expanded from a seven-day event to a 10-day fête.

He credits this to the growing popularity of documentary films in the U.S. and Canada.

“People are learning that they don’t have to go see Hollywood movies to be entertained,” Steinberg said.

Steinberg said he viewed almost 500 of the entries, but doesn’t have a favorite film in the festival. He said he really enjoyed both “Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks” and “Racing Dreams,” documenting preteens with dreams of racing stock cars in NASCAR.

“The films present characters, stories and ideas that are compelling on their own,” Steinberg said. “If you don’t like NASCAR, so what? This is a great film about people.”

There are four award categories in this year’s festival, including Best Feature Film, Best Mini-Documentary, Best Short Film and the Big Sky Award. There are 11 films in contention for the Best Feature Film Award, including “Antione,” “Cleanflix” and “There Once was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho.”

The three films range from stories of a blind, five-year-old boy assimilating into public school to Utah video-store owners who edit profanity from their videos to a Pacific Island family dealing with the effects of global warming on their home.
Best Short Film is an award for films longer than 15 minutes but shorter than 50 minutes. There are nine entries up for this award, including “Born Sweet,” about a young Cambodian boy poisoned by arsenic in his drinking water and “Never Enough,” a story chronicling days in the lives of people with hoarding disorders.

Among the competitors for this award is “Let Your Feet Do the Talkin’,” a film about “70-year-old buck-dancing legend” Thomas Maupin after his recovery from cancer and when he received an award for his dancing.

The mini-documentary competition has 13 films vying for the award, which goes to the best film under 15 minutes. Films here range from a stop-motion film accompanied by dialogue to the story of three inmates and the effects incarceration has had on their families to a film about a guy who just can’t get enough ginseng.

The Big Sky Award goes to a film that is shot in the West. Six films will fight for this title: “Fire in the Garden,” “Joseph,” “Milltown, Montana,” “Next Year Country,” “Sweetgrass” and “Unreserved.” Hitting close to home, Rainier Komer’s “Milltown, Montana” presents images without dialogue, illustrating the way the town went from a booming mining capital to a “magnificent landscape deeply scarred by man.”

Tracy Rector is the director of “Unreserved,” a story of an artist that took his Coast Salish art and merged it with shoe-giant Vans to create a one-of-a-kind skate shoe. Rector said that she didn’t know who her competitors were but she thinks the film will do well.

“I’m excited and hopeful,” Rector said. “I’m most interested in people feeling like they connect to the movie.”

Rector began making the film in March 2009 and finishing in November, just before the cutoff date for entering the festival.

There are many more films featured in the festival that are not competing for awards. “Wu Tang Gran” is the story of 70-year-old dancers preparing to take on China’s best break dance group. “Anne Perry Interiors” tells the tale of an author of murder mysteries that was involved in a murder at the age of 15.

For those can’t get enough of the film fest, Big Sky offers all-access passes for $250 that gives the holder access to parties and discussions with “Big Sky big wigs” and filmmakers during the length of the festival, as well as all movie screenings and the award screenings.

If you are interested in just watching all the movies you can, the festival offers a full-festival pass for $100 that also includes a spot at the award screenings.

Individual tickets will be available at the Wilma’s box office before each show for $6 before 5 p.m. and $7 if purchased after 5 p.m.

A full showing schedule and film synopses are available at http://www.bigskyfilmfest.org.

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