Neil LaRubbio is a journalist and filmmaker currently working the oil fields of Colorado. He has written for High Country News and Vice.com. This is his inside look at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
Ryan Seitz
Bryan Ramirez, left, hosts Dan Skaggs for a quick radio spot in the KBGA studio in Missoula.
I arrived at the little house after a 12-hour drive, sustained by canned-salmon sandwiches and loose tobacco. Brushed by years of soot, the little house sits 20 feet away from the Missoula rail yard.
This is where our documentary, “Freeload,” first came to life. It’s where our director first “caught out” during the summer of 2011. It’s where we chipped at the gravel parking lot to bury 200 pounds of swine for our pig roast fundraiser. And it’s where I’ve returned to watch our first movie attempt to impress a rather prestigious audience at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
Inside the cruddy little house is Ryan Seitz, the Billings native and now video entrepreneur who co-produced and edited the film, and Daniel Skaggs, our director, who rode the rails for 18 months to shoot this documentary on modern-day hobos. We exchange hugs — we haven’t seen each other in months — but there is work to do. Our movie will premier the next day, Feb. 21, at the historic Wilma Theatre.
We meet up with the fourth member of Highway Goat Productions, Mather McKallor, and take off on foot, peppering the streets with handbills and posters. Snow flakes the size of cat paws land on our head and shoulders. We shuffle into Charlie B.’s to inflate our egos over a few beers. It may sound vain and distasteful, but film festivals are designed to pamper filmmakers and bolster their confidence. Why shouldn’t they? We’ve terrorized ourselves with doubt and disputes for three years. This week is made to mend and move on.
Nick Davis, the festival director, scheduled us for an afternoon radio interview in the lobby of the Wilma. We arrive and shake hands with Dave Cowan, a veteran of the airwaves. He’s got a folded table set up with microphones and a soundboard. Having been on the radio only a handful of times, it’s still odd not being able to see the hundreds of listeners plumbed into our conversation. But Cowan’s a pro. He asks the questions any regular person would about the subjects of our film. Is train hopping dangerous? Where do they sleep? Why do they do this? Skaggs and I rattle off answers, and just as we start to get comfortable, the interview ends.
We shake hands and leave to our next appointment with a photographer, Ashley McKee, just outside the theater. She runs a local blog, 365 Days, a portfolio of photographs from the streets of Missoula. It’s the first time we’ve been photographed as a crew, and we’re uncomfortable.
Ryan Seitz
A view from the stage during the Montana premiere of "Freeload" last Friday night at the Wilma Theatre.
On the way to an interview at the college radio station, we stop by the Holiday Inn for coffee and baked goods in the filmmakers lounge. A masseuse plugs her fingers into the spine of a filmmaker who’s sitting corpse-like, face first in a massage chair. Rooms at the hotel are free for the week. The festival directors have spared no expense.
The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival has grown into one of the most important documentary festivals on the circuit, drawing over 20,000 people and over 1,000 film selections every year. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently anointed it as a qualifying festival, so beginning this year, winners of the short doc and mini doc competitions will be considered for Oscar nominations. To their credit, festival directors have maintained the feel of a Montana film festival. They host after parties and pre-parties and ceremonies at downtown locations that locals frequent without the slightest hint of gimmick.
At KBGA studios on the University of Montana campus, we meet Bryan Ramirez, who’s hosting a two-hour music slot. Ramirez, an experimental musician, composed the soundtrack for “Freeload.” Windows stretch from floor to ceiling in the cramped studio. Because we’re friends, this interview’s more casual, but restrictions prevent college stations from “calls to action,” so we can’t ask the listeners to come to our premiere. Skaggs and Seitz dance around the regulations, but we get our point across.
Ramirez fades the music back in and takes his headset off. It’s a mystery what tomorrow will bring — how will the audience will react? How many people will show up? Excitement simmers beneath our skin like a waking volcano.
I arrived at the Top Hat for the awards ceremony that evening thinking I was late, but the filmmakers were still mingling around the open bar. I talked to a young guy, Ben Mullinkosson, with a barber’s moustache and a scarlet seaman’s cap. His film, “What I Hate About Myself” was competing against nine other films for the short doc award.
On the Top Hat stage was a projector screen where movie clips played. Filmmakers sat in dark chairs, nursing their locally distilled gin or vodka. The presenters stood and fidgeted with discomfort as they announced their award selections. Most of them prefaced their announcement with some variation of “we actually had three winners, but we can only recognize one for the award.”
In the end, “The Best Record Breaker” won for best short documentary, and “Eugene” won for best mini doc. Mullinkosson smiled with disappointment afterward. “Next time,” he said.
Even with the notes I took, everything leading up to our premiere the next day is a blur. I remember talking to a friend in front of the concession stand. He was one of our first donors. One gray day in Missoula, he had pulled a $100 bill out of his wallet and handed it over like placing a bet on a horse. The hidden beauty behind our premiere was that many of our donors would be in the audience. This night meant that we hadn’t failed their trust.
Five minutes before show time, the lobby swelled. Skaggs received a text from a friend waiting in line, “It’s a zoo out here.” By the time everyone had taken their seats, the house was full. They opened the balcony for extra seating. It was the single largest showing of the festival. Our efforts had paid off.
The lights went down and the tension rose. Our title card appeared and the crowd cheered. They laughed at unexpected spots. They fell silent when I expected them to be. They were in tune with the movie. The scenes stirred my memories of putting this film together — the phone conversations with McKallor and Seitz as they labored over how to piece together the narrative puzzle. I remembered phone calls from the road when Skaggs wanted to be anywhere else but sleeping under a bridge that night. Logistically, the film was difficult, but it was complete and there were now 1,000 people watching it under one roof.
And just like that, the moment passed. Three years of work culminated in 65 minutes on the screen. We rode a wave up to its crest and gently washed onto the shores of reality.
Everything that comes hereafter is gravy on top, however. All we wanted was one night in front of our home crowd. Just one night.
