The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival is the premier venue for non-fiction film in the American West. Big Sky offers an ideal setting for filmmakers to premiere new work and develop lasting relationships with fellow filmmakers and industry. Celebrating 22 years in 2025, the festival draws an audience of 20,000 and film entries from every corner of the globe to a uniquely intimate mountain town setting with local Montana flavor.

The festival hosts over 200 visiting artists, presents an average of 150 non-fiction films and offers a variety of exciting events throughout downtown Missoula, Montana. In addition to screenings, Big Sky hosts DocShop, a five-day industry event that includes panels, master classes, workshops, and the Big Sky Pitch session. DocShop participants have included: HBO Documentary Films, Showtime Documentary Films, Tribeca Film Institute, Sundance Film Institute, New York Times Video, ESPN Films, Gravitas Ventures, Al Jazeera Witness Participant Media, SFFILM, BBC Storyville, CNN Films, ITVS, POV, PBS, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Seed & Spark, Film Independent, Field of Vision, The Fledgling Fund and Ford Foundation. Big Sky also screens films in schools across the state of Montana reaching over 4,000 students in just four days. Participating filmmakers have the unique opportunity to visit classrooms to present their films and engage students in discussion.

The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival is an Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences qualifying event for short-form documentaries. The winner of the Best Mini-Doc and Best Short Documentary categories automatically qualifies to compete for a Documentary Short Oscar the following year. Distinguished judges from around the country select the winners in each category during the ten day festival. Special guests of the festival have included Les Blank, Barbara Kopple, Steve James, Joe Berlinger, Lucy Walker, Ondi Timoner, Robert Drew, Stanley Nelson, Kirby Dick, Greg Barker, Penny Lane, Daniel Junge, Sam Green, John Cohen, Jeanie Finlay, Doug Pray, Travis Wilkerson, Jeff & Michael Zimbalist, Cazeh Zahedi, Hart & Dana Perry, Ron Mann, the Ross Brothers, Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert and many many more.

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