This weekend, the Montana Film Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary at the Roxy Theater with an expanded selection of fictional films from around the world. The first one I previewed, 8 Minutes 20 Seconds, takes place 8 minutes and 20 seconds before the Earth loses access to sunlight, focusing on one man and the people he loves. It’s chilling (obviously) but also a pretty great way for a filmmaker to exercise a very tight time constraint on a subject who, like any of us, has so much regret once he’s faced with a world about to change forever. This is what I love about quirky, independent filmmaking and the types of films you’ll see at a festival like MTFF.
The lineup this year includes 10 feature films, three shorts blocks and a dedicated tribute to the renowned Hubley family — often hailed as the first family of American independent animation. John and Faith Hubley gained recognition for classic short films such as Oscar-winner Moonbird (1959), Oscar-nominee Windy Day (1968), and the family comedy classic Cockaboody (1973).
“They made these extraordinary, experimental animated shorts for many decades,” says Mike Emmons, programming director of both the Roxy and MTFF. “And so we’re going to do a two-part retrospective of their work.”
The Hubley kids were regularly involved in the creative process (their voices are featured in many of the films) and helped with coloring and other roles. Emily Hubley, one of the Hubley daughters, has made a name for herself in the animation world, and she will be at the festival as part of the tribute.
Emmons says the 10-feature lineup might not be the most they’ve ever had for the festival, but it’s up there. And for the small staff at the Roxy, curating a weekend full of so many films is no small feat. “We didn’t want to say no to any of those final 10 features,” Emmons says. “We didn’t want to cut anything for the purpose of brevity. We wanted to keep everything as it was. But it’s made MTFF easily our second biggest festival [next to the International Wildlife Film Festival] and one that really does require a lot of work from a lot of people for a lot of time. This has become a big undertaking.”
The Montana Film Festival is often stuck with the misconception that it’s a festival of Montana-made films only — and that’s not true at all. This year’s festival has curated a collection of international films, including a short from Brazil and a feature from China. Jazzy is a Montana-adjacent film, because it’s a follow-up to last year’s hit The Unknown Country, starring award-winning Montana-born actress Lily Gladstone. Jazzy follows the niece of Gladstone’s character (Gladstone does make a brief appearance, though).
But of course there are some exciting Montana-made films, as usual. The feature lineup includes one Montana-made film: Bitter Root. It’s directed by Vera Brunner-Sung, who showed her film Bella Vista at the festival almost a decade ago. Bitter Root is a contemplative film that dives deep into the life of a Hmong man grappling with personal loss and identity, and it’s shot against the stunning backdrop of a western Montana landscape.
Then there’s Montana-raised filmmaker Jennings Barmore, who had a short comedic film in the festival a couple of years ago, called Neck Deep. He also returns this year with an adaptation of Jack London’s To Build a Fire, which was shot in the Quake Lake area.
“That is such a professional, extraordinary piece of work, and it’s such an evolution for him,” Emmons says. “We loved Neck Deep, but this is on a whole other level.”
And then there’s Lauren Norby’s short film, $55 Private Room in a Safe Quiet Neighborhood, which begins with the voice of a woman saying, “This all started as a way to kill my husband.” The comedy follows Jennifer, whose plots to kill her husband by way of an Airbnb guest-turned-lover is complicated by her husband’s own plot against her, by way of his lover-turned-Airbnb guest.
MTFF is always such a mix of fictional films, and that’s what makes it so fun. But Emmons notes that the festival ended up with a strange, unintentional theme. “It’s a theme of haplessness,” he says, laughing. “It shows up in almost every film. It’s like, that sense of trying to beat the clock or hold onto what you have. It’s this strange undercurrent of being unable to get out of your own way. I don’t know. Maybe I’m projecting it.”
