What to Watch at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival

Seeking Hope: Stories of Immigration, Uncertainty, and Resilience in the USA

In these films, immigrants navigate a complicated immigration and legal system as they search for a better life in the United States. 

• "The Test": A Ghanaian maintenance worker at a Virginia retirement community dreams of becoming an American citizen to provide a better life for his family. With their future at stake, he enlists the help of two elderly residents to prepare for the biggest test of his life: the US Citizenship exam. 
  Screening: Monday, February 19th at 4:00pm at the ZACC
• "After Landing": Jorge and Jeczebel left their four children behind in Venezuela, for what they hoped would be a better life in America. They didn’t expect a bus would bring them from Texas to New York. They also didn’t expect to encounter a city overwhelmed by one of the largest humanitarian crises in its history. The film explores the migrant experience from a deeply personal perspective as they struggle to live in the US and to support their children back home.
  Screening: Saturday, February 17th at 12:30 pm and Monday, February 19th at 12:30pm at the Wilma
• "...And the Pursuit of Happiness": In 1986, Louis Malle, himself a transplant to the United States, set out to investigate the ever-widening range of immigrant experience in America. Interviewing a variety of newcomers (from teachers to astronauts to doctors) in middle- and working-class communities from coast to coast, Malle paints a generous, humane portrait of their individual struggles in an increasingly polyglot nation.
  Screening: Saturday, February 17th at 11:30 am at the ZACC
• "An Hour from the Middle of Nowhere": In Stewart County in Southwest Georgia lies one of the largest immigration detention facilities in the United States, and it is here that the lives of an immigration attorney, a family, and a community intertwine. Due process is hard to find in isolated areas, and in this rural area, 160 miles from Atlanta, there are no private immigration attorneys except for Marty Rosenbluth. Together with his legal assistant Alondra, he takes on a daily fight against the arbitrariness of the courts. Filmed over five years, this intimate portrait offers authentic insight into the dehumanizing deportation process.
  Screening: Sunday, February 18th at 12:15 pm at the ZACC 
• "Si Pudiera Quedarma (If I Could Stay)": is a heart wrenching and inspiring story of two undocumented Latinx mothers, Jeanette and Ingrid, who courageously enter local churches to evade deportation and protect their families
  Screening: Wednesday, February 21st at 5:30 pm at the Roxy
• "UnSeen": Most people dream of a better future. Pedro, an aspiring social worker, is no different. But as a blind, undocumented immigrant, Pedro faces political restrictions to obtain his college degree, secure a job as a health care provider, and support his family. As he finally graduates, uncertainty looms over Pedro. What starts as a journey to provide mental health for his community ultimately transforms into Pedro’s path towards his own healing. Through experimental cinematography and sound, unseen reimagines a cinema accessible for blind/low vision audiences, while exploring the intersections of immigration, disability, and mental health.
  Screening: Sunday, February 18th at 2:45 pm at the ZACC 

Seeking Safety: Stories of Refuge and War

Increasingly, individuals across the globe are forced to make impossible decisions: Stay in their home country and risk their lives, or risk their lives trying to flee. These films feature stories of individuals from war-torn areas who are grappling with this decision.

• "On the Way Home": In 1993, after a war in Abkhazia, thousands of ethnic Georgian families sought refuge in the decaying Soviet sanatoriums nestled in the town of Tskaltubo. Iamze, 81, and Nikusha, 12, are two of the displaced individuals who try to build a new life amid the haunting ruins as they await promised government housing. Their stories reveal not only their resilience and camaraderie, but also the profound transformation of the sanatoriums from symbols of health and luxury to havens of survival, indelibly shaped by the echoes of war. 
  Screening: Monday, February 19th at 1:15 pm at the Roxy 
• "Now I am Old and do not Need the Moon": In a small Roma village deep in Moldova, an old woman named Daria lives in fear of the Russian-Ukrainian war at her doorstep. Mischievous kids, watchful babushki, and stray dogs surround her. Alone in her hut, she contemplates love, the Soviet Union, and the tragedy that derailed her life as a young woman. Her television set fills the silence. 
  Screening: Thursday, February 22nd at 5:00 pm at the Wilma 
• "Photophobia": On a cold February morning, 12-year-old Niki and his family arrive at the Kharkiv metro station in Ukraine to take shelter from the war raging outside. For Niki’s family, daylight is synonymous with mortal danger, and the boy is not allowed to leave the station, living under the constant glow of the neon lights and surrounded by a thousand others who have also taken shelter there. While wandering around the abandoned cars and crowded platforms, Niki meets Vika, 11, and a new world opens up to him. As their bond strengthens, this hybrid documentary explores the experience of children during a terrifying war. 
  Screening: Thursday, February 22nd at 2:45 pm at the Wilma 
• "Porcelain War": Below roaring Russian fighter jets and missile strikes, three Ukrainian artists choose to stay behind and fight. They must contend with their new identities as soldiers. Even in those shoes, they find beauty defiantly surviving destruction. "Porcelain War" shows that although it’s easy to make people fearful, it’s hard to destroy their passion to live.
  Screening: Wednesday, February 17th at 5:30 pm at the Wilma 
• "The Sound of the Wind": A woman is attempting to rebuild her life after Russia's invasion of Ukraine shattered her existence there and forced her to flee to the safety of the Scottish Isles
  Screening: Wednesday, February 17th at 12:30 pm at the Wilma
• "Three Promises": While the Israeli army retaliates against the Second Intifada in the West Bank in the early 2000s, a mother films her family’s daily life, punctuated by time spent shielding her family from harm in the basement. Now, her son revisits this past through her footage, delivering a heart-breaking portrait of the anguish of parents who are forced to choose between their children’s physical safety and the emotional upheaval of leaving home 
  Screening: Wednesday, February 17th at 12:00 pm at MCT 
• "More than Brothers": Since the precipitous retreat of the U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021 and the subsequent power takeover by the Taliban, the Afghans who helped the Allies are being hunted down and killed. "More than Brothers" portrays the personal sacrifices and political engagement of two Green Berets in a race against time to save the Afghans who kept them safe during their deployments as well as two of their Afghan allies whose lives have been completely uprooted since the chaotic withdrawal. 
  Screening: Wednesday, February 17th at 4:30 pm at the ZACC 
• "Anxious in Beirut": is a personal diary that documents the events of the last two years in Lebanon including revolution, explosions, demonstrations, and the post-war atmosphere. Living with constant anxiety, the film’s young director narrates his own life while trying, on numerous occasions, to leave his country. 
  Screening: Thursday, February 22nd at 6:00 pm at the Roxy 
• "Bubjan": Parwiz Zafari, a former member of the Iranian parliament dedicated his life to cultivating a progressive, modern, and free society in Iran - before the rise of the Islamic Republic eclipsed those aspirations in 1979, and forced him to leave behind everything he knew. 
  Screening: Wednesday, February 17th at 4:30 pm at the ZACC 

Additional Recommendations 

Though we want to, it would be impossible to list every incredible movie selected this year for the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Please check out the full list of selections here.  Additional films with themes relevant to the global mission of the International Rescue Committee are suggested below: 

• "Existimos en la Memoria (We Exist in Memory)" 
• "Fratelli Carbonai"
• "Until He's Back" 
• "Behind the Mask"
• "Bye Bye Tiberias"
• "Kowloon"
• "Mediha"
• "My Queerceañera"
• "Scenes from Salé"

We hope to see you at the Movies!