Big Sky Documentary Film Festival

Throughout the course of the Haida basketball season, leaders of iconic rez ball team the Skidegate Saints compete for two titles - defending their All Native Basketball Championship, while also battling for title to their land and waters with the government that stole it from them with the Indian Act. Patrick Shannon, director of the film Saints and Warriors, joins Colter Nuanez in the ESPN 102.9...

Hidden away in the suburbs of Los Angeles, legendary cult musician Swamp Dogg, along with housemates Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, have transformed their home into an artistic playground. Together, they navigate the tumultuous music industry, forging a unique and inspiring bond across time and space. In this episode, director Isaac Gale visits the Trail 103.3 studios to discuss his film Swamp Dogg G...

Chazz Racine, a determined rider for Carlson Relay, fiercely represents the Blackfeet Nation in Indian Relay. The film Two Medicine chronicles Chazz's desire to win and his personal battles off the track—his brother’s fight with cancer, his friend’s struggle with alcoholism, and his own past trauma. In this episode, director Taylor Hawkins chats with Colter Nuanez of 102.9 ESPN Radio.

Unraveling centuries of greed and exploitation in America’s meat industry, THE JUNGLE is a modern-day take on Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel that calls into question the profiteering of ecosystems and reveals how indigenous knowledge may hold the key to creating equitable food systems for both people and the planet. In this episode, director Matt Weschler chats with Mike Smith of the Trail 103.3 abou...

Decades after leaving Appalachia, a daughter returns to eastern Kentucky to excavate her father’s remarkable filmmaking legacy and reflects on the effect her home still has on her. In this episode, producer Anna White visits the 102.9 ESPN studios to discuss Appalheads' world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

Lucy Adams' film Coywolf meditates on the urban landscape of New York City and the coyotes that inhabit it, blurring the lines between city and nature and exploring how we relate to wildlife in urban environments. In this episode, Adams chats with Mike Smith of the Trail 103.3 about her film, which made its world premiere at this year's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.

TIWAHE is a vibrant, slice-of-life portrait spanning four generations of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes in Hays, Montana, on the Fort Belknap Reservation. In this episode, Colter Nuanez of 102.9 ESPN discusses the film with directors Josh Benson and James Suter.

In San Francisco, the decades-long battle for affordable housing is reaching a breaking point, with dire warnings for the rest of the country. Directors Nate Houghteling and Yoav Attias of the documentary Fault Lines discuss their film, its lessons and much more with Mike Smith of the Trail 103.3.

The Birds is a moving portrait of one man’s desperation to decipher the relationship between mass flights of seabirds and a single super-speed predator. In this episode, co-director Martin Dohrn visits the Trail 103.3 studios to discuss the making of the film.

UNEARTH follows an inspiring set of Native Alaskan activists and commercial salmon fishermen as they navigate the treacherous waters of power players, politics, and tactics driving forward North America’s largest-ever proposed copper mine in their beloved homeland of Bristol Bay, Alaska, revealing the potentially unsustainable cost of our sustainable future. In this episode, director Hunter Nolan...

STOLEN KINGDOM delves into the history of mischief, scandal, and theft at Walt Disney World, ultimately leading to the theft of an animatronic valued at nearly half a million dollars. Executive director Josh Koopman chats with Colter Nuanez of 102.9 ESPN about the process of documenting such a secretive and obsessive culture, as well as the big question at the heart of the film: Who stole Buzzy?

Captured in intimate verite by director Alix Blair, HELEN AND THE BEAR is a lyrical portrait of the beautiful and complex relationship between free-spirited Helen and once-prominent politician Pete as they enter the final chapter of their marriage.  As Pete’s health worsens and Helen anticipates life without “Bear,” she wrestles with what’s been lost and won through life by his side. In this episo...

Julia Sherman, executive director of the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, sits down with Mike Smith of the Trail 103.3 to preview the 2025 festival and some of the highlights of this year's schedule.

Educating and empowering the next generation of documentary filmmakers, the BSDFF's youth fellowship gives students a crash course in documentary history and hands-on filmmaking. Two of the youth filmmakers visited the Trail studios to talk with Mike Smith about their experience. Amity Blue directed Flipping the Switch, about what happens when a band breaks up. Ben Buchta's Behind the Concrete fol...

Bring Them Home is the story of a small group of Blackfoot people and their mission to establish the first wild buffalo herd on their ancestral territory since the species’ near-extinction a century ago. Filmmakers Ivy McDonald and Daniel Glick joined Colter Nuanez on 102.9 ESPN Missoula to talk about creating an emotional, important film about restoring the land and healing a community.

Welcome Space Brothers is a feature documentary about The Unarius Academy of Science, an extraterrestrial-channeling spiritual school and self-healing community established in the 1970s in El Cajon, California that became a wildly prolific filmmaking collective under the direction of outlandish spiritual leader and filmmaker Ruth E. Norman, AKA “Archangel Uriel.” In this episode of the Big Sky Doc...

The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival was the very first film festival to show Jeanie Finlay's work when Teenland premiered in Missoula in 2008. Fifteen years later, Finlay is an accomplished, decorated director with an eclectic filmography that runs from community theater to goths on a boat to a behind-the-scenes look at Game of Thrones. Jeanie Finlay, the subject of the 2024 Big Sky Documentary...

In the 1970s, the Houston Herricanes were a part of the first women’s full tackle football league in the United States, starting a movement that's still in motion today. The Herricanes tells their unknown story of commitment, courage, strength and love for the game. Filmmaker Olivia Kuan joined Andrew Houghton of 102.9 ESPN Missoula to talk about her inspiring documentary.

The Wonder and the Worry follows the careers of former National Geographic Editor in Chief, Chris Johns, and his daughter Louise, a young freelance photographer, telling a story about family, photography and the power of visual storytelling to create change. Director David Baker and subject Chris Johns visited the Trail studios to chat with Mike Smith about The Wonder and the Worry, which is the B...

On the Red Lake (Ojibwe) Reservation in Minnesota, the high school football team hasn't one a game in two decades. Through the Storm follows the efforts of a determined coach and group of young athletes, who fight to keep their football program alive. Filmmakers Charles Frank and Fritz Bitsoie joined Colter Nuanez for a look at their film before its world premiere.

Every summer, working-class families enjoy waterfront living in a scrappy trailer park off the coast of Virginia. When the relentless march of capitalism threatens their shabby Shangri-La, the denizens of Inlet View face the inevitable, and reveal the secrets to a rich life. Amy Nicholson, the director of Happy Campers, visited the Trail studios to discuss her heartwarming feature film with Mike S...

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival Education Director Julia Sherman talks with Aubrey Nilsen of 104.5 the U about Schoolhouse Docs and the wonderfully rich array of youth programs that are part of the 21st annual Big Sky Doc Film Fest.

Known only by her research number, Grizzly 399 has captivated photographers since 2007, becoming the most famous — and photographed — mother bear in the world. The Big Sky Doc Fest's opening night film follows 399 as she struggles to raise an unusually large litter in the face of human encroachment, a rapidly changing climate, and disputes over her Endangered Species protections. Director and prod...

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival executive director Rachel Gregg stopped by the Missoula Broadcasting company studios to preview the opening night film 399: Queen of the Tetons and offer a few of her other personal recommendations for films she's looking forward to this week.

As buffalo return to the North American landscapes they once defined, the important ecological and cultural impacts of that restoration have begun to manifest. A Buffalo Story follows the work of Jason Baldes, the Tribal Buffalo Manager for buffalo restoration on the Wind River Reservation, whose efforts to help people believe in buffalo again require him to confront his own trauma. In the debut i...