The Montana Film Festival began in 2015 at the Roxy Theater, spearheaded by the visionary duo Andrew Rizzo and Aaron Roos. In 2018, the festival was handed over to a new pair of artists, writer/director Alana Waksman and editor Marshall Granger, who fostered the festival up through 2020 and a virtual festival necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the reopening of the theater in 2021, MTFF has continued to celebrate the most innovative, uncompromised, and powerful films the medium has to offer, with a special focus on Montana’s cinematic past, present, and future. As the festival enters its tenth year, the current team–Operations Manager David Mills-Low, Coordinator Lizzie Archer, Programming Director Mike Emmons, and others–are eager to continue a vibrant tradition.
