2018 festival award winners
Mint spirit award | american relapse
Directed by Pat McGee & Adam Linkenhelt | Documentary Feature | USA, 105 mins | Montana Premiere
AMERICAN RELAPSE is a feature documentary about the ripped-from-the-headlines heroin epidemic and the corrupt underground rehab industry that has sprung up around it in Southern Florida. This, on-the-ground documentary follows the day-to-day struggle of recovering addicts Allie and Frankie attempting to place addicts in treatment, but can they stay clean themselves?
Best female director | amrita pradhan for WE WERE ÍSLANDS
Directed by Amrita Pradhan | Narrative Feature | USA, 80 mins | Montana Premiere
Reeta, a young stand-up comedian, feels the heat. As she edges closer to the ominous age of 3-0, she feels the ever-mounting pressure to fall in love, get married, and settle down. Her growing doubts and conservative Indian family are certainly not helping the situation. When she meets lonely funeral home employee Juliun, her happy ending finally feels imminent… so why isn’t she happy? A whimsical dramatic-comedy about trying to fix something that may have been broken all along.
Best made in montana film | willow creek road
Directed by Francesca Mirabella | USA, 15 minutes
Big Sky Film Grant Recipient
An isolated ranch hand is forced to confront herself, when she unexpectedly picks up two children along a rural Montana road.
Best Narrative Feature
Human Affairs
Directed by Charlie Birns | Narrative Feature | USA, 78 mins
A compassionate drama about a young, successful theatre couple in New York City who meet their surrogate mother for the first time, and embark on a startling and intimate weekend of surprises and revelations.
Best Documentary Feature
General Magic
Directed by Sarah Kerruish & Matt Maude | Documentary Feature | USA, 93 mins
The side of Silicon Valley you never see, General Magic is a tale of how great vision and epic failure can change the world.
Best narrative Short Film
Calamity
Directed by Severine De Streyker & Maxime Feyers | Belgium, 20 minutes
France meets her son’s girlfriend for the first time. She loses control…
Best Documentary Short Film
The Battered Wife
Directed by Jessica Portuondo | USA, 5 minutes
A Battered Wife tells the story of Montana and its tormented relationship with industrial mining.
Special jury awards
Mud (Hashtł’ishnii)
Category | Short Film
Directed by Shaandiin Tome | USA, 10 min
On her last day, Ruby faces the inescapable remnants of alcoholism, family, and culture.
Riding Wild
Category | Documentary Feature
Directed by Charles Cohen | USA, 83 mins
This documentary follows one man’s quest to lead a tribe of BMXers to bushwhack a secret bike trail through a patch of forgotten woods in Baltimore City to escape the violence outside their doorsteps.
The Song of Sway Lake
Category | Narrative Feature
Directed by Ari Gold | USA, 94 mins
It’s summer on Sway Lake, former playground of the jazz-age New York aristocracy. Young music collector Ollie Sway (Rory Culkin) recruits his only friend, a rowdy Russian drifter (Robert Sheehan), to help him steal a one-of-a-kind vintage record from his own family’s glamorous lake house.
The Pushouts
Category | Best Female Director(s)
Directed by Katie Galloway and Dawn Valadez | USA, 60 mins
I was in prison before I was even born. So begins the story of Dr. Victor Rios who, by 15, was a high school dropout and gang member with multiple felony convictions and a death wish…