Big Sky Documentary Film Festival

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival

By Big Sky Documentary Film FestivalTV & FilmFilm Interviews
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Big Sky Documentary Film Festival episodes

  • Israelism

    When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the mistreatment of Palestinians, they battle the old guard to create a new movement opposing Israel’s occupation, and recentering Judaism itself. That's the story of Israelism, which makes its world premiere Thursday at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Filmmakers Eric Axelman and Sam Eilertsen visited the Trail 103.3 studios to discuss the film.

    22 min
  • #MoCrazyStrong

    When professional skier Jamie MoCrazy fell during the slopestyle event at the World Tour Finals in 2015, she suffered a traumatic brain injury so severe that officials at the ski hill prepared her fatality report. The injury left her in a coma, with her entire right side paralyzed and her brain bleeding in eight places. #MoCrazyStrong is the story of MoCrazy's miraculous years-long recovery that helped revolutionize treatment for traumatic brain injuries and set her on a course to advocate for others with similar injuries. Jamie and her sister Jeanee Crane-Mauzy joined Andrew Houghton in the ESPN Missoula studios to discuss the film.

    14 min
  • Matter of Mind: My ALS

    Director Anna Moot-Levin discusses her film Matter of Mind: My ALS. The documentary follows three people diagnosed with ALS, a neurodegenerative disease with no known cure, and the choices they make as they grapple with how best to treat the illness.

    15 min
  • The Hamlet Syndrome

    Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosolowski visit the Missoula Broadcasting Company studios to discuss their documentary film The Hamlet Syndrome. Filmed just months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the documentary follows a group of Ukrainian actors struggling with the traumas of war, sexism and homophobia as they attempt to stage an adaptation of Hamlet that grapples with the contemporary challenges of their country.

    13 min
  • Shadow Of A Dog

    Filmmakers Sean Paulsen and Brad Wickham detail the late-night cemetery stakeouts that went into making their film Shadow of a Dog. The film follows a man who roams the forgotten corners of New York, hoping to track down lost pets and re-unite them with their owners.

    13 min
  • Penny Lane

    Documentary filmmaker Penny Lane, the subject of this year's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Retrospective, visits the Trail 103.3 studio to talk about her films that will shown at the festival, with subjects as diverse as Kenny G, Richard Nixon, the Church of Satan and Depression-era snake oil salesman John Brinkley, who peddled goat testicles as a cure for impotence.

    28 min
  • A Decent Home
    The film A Decent Home opened the 2022 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival by going inside mobile home parks, where some of the most affordable housing in the country is increasingly being bought out by the richest of the rich. In this episode of the BSDFF podcast, the Trail's Robert Chase talks with director Sara Terry about A Decent Home being shown on opening night and the main question of the film: Do we want housing in this country to be available to everyone, or simply treated as a commodity to be bought and sold?
    16 min
  • Memory Lanes
    While stuck in his apartment during the pandemic, Brian Gersten decided to make a film about one of his family's favorite pastimes - bowling. That film became Memory Lanes. In this episode of the BSDFF podcast, ESPN Missoula's Andrew Houghton sits down with Gersten to talk about the process of making a film completely from archival footage and how he grappled with the dark themes of American history - racism, sexism, violence - that he found intertwined with an innocent, idyllic sport enjoyed by millions across the country.
    18 min
  • Charm Circle
    The closing night film at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival is Charm Circle, a deeply personal glimpse into the lives of an eccentric New York family. In this episode of the Big Sky Doc fest podcast, the Trail's Robert Chase talks with director Nira Burstein about her first visit to Missoula and the process of making a film that documents her own family's nuances and identity.
    12 min
  • One Road to Quartzsite
    Every winter, a ragtag group of crustpunks, libertarians, snowbirds, and elderly folks become unlikely neighbors during their annual pilgrimage to a temporary longterm camping community in Quartzsite, Arizona. In this episode of the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival podcast, Colter Nuanez talks with Ryan Maxey, director of the film One Road to Quartzsite, about seeing his film make its world premiere and how he told the story of the diverse set of characters that converge on Quartzsite to try to escape the constraints of society.
    14 min

About Big Sky Documentary Film Festival

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Now in its 22nd year, the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival is the premier venue for non-fiction film in the American West. Every year, the festival brings over a hundred beautifully-crafted,…