10th Annual Montana Film Festival

Celebrate independent film making when the tenth annual Montana Film Festival returns. This year’s lineup features ten feature-length and 25 short films as well as an animation retrospective, a live script reading, a Big Sky Grant workshop, and a two-day intensive production assistant course, plus numerous Q&A sessions and talkbacks with filmmakers. 
The Montana Film Festival promotes bold independent films from around the world, engaging its community with remarkable shared cinematic experiences. This year’s festival hosts numerous Montana-made films, including the long-awaited second film from writer/director Vera Brunner-Sung, Bitterroot, which won a major award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and tells the story of a Hmong man concealing the loss of both his marriage and job from his traditionalist mother. Other Montana-made shorts include the Western Bleach Bone, the dark comedy $55 Private Room in a Safe Quiet Neighborhood, and an adaptation of Jack London’s classic story To Build a Fire. Filmmaker and animator Emily Hubley joins the festival for retrospectives of both her work and her parents’ - Faith and John Hubley - work. Often nicknamed “The First Family of American Independent Animation,” the Hubleys’ visionary work has entertained and inspired generations, with their films showcased by the Museum of Modern Art and the Criterion Collection. 
MTFF has always been committed to showing films representing many different genres, and this year is no exception. Montana actor Everett Blunck will be in-house for his new comedy Griffin in Summer, about the titular 14-year-old playwright (Blunck) who becomes obsessed with his mom’s handyman. Animated musical, Boys Go to Jupiter, features an all-star cast (Janeane Garofalo, Julio Torres, Elsie Fisher) and follows the adventures of a teenage gig worker whose quest to make $5,000 is derailed by the appearance of a gelatinous little creature from outer space. Lily Gladstone appears in Jazzy, the sequel to 2022 Montana Film Festival Selection, The Unknown Country. Years in the making, Jazzy is a portrait of a young Oglala Lakota girl as she leaves the dreamlike world of childhood behind. Other films screening include Rap World, the feature directorial debut of comedian Conner O’Malley, a 2009-set period piece about aspiring rappers in suburbia; Eephus, a baseball comedy about the last face-off between rec-league teams before their field is destroyed; National Anthem, an exhilarating cinematic reinvention of the coming-of-age story set at a queer ranch in the west; Tendaberry, a lyrical glimpse of young, urban adulthood in New York City; the shocking and off-kilter drama Vulcanizadora, and moving Sundance winner, In the Summers, a poignant exploitation of redemption and family dynamics. The additional short films curated by MTFF run the gamut from experimental animation to horror to meta-comedy, with six different countries represented.