Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
The Montana Fishing Film Festival grew from a single rented-theater screening in Missoula to a tour of 26 stops across seven states in seven years. The festival selects for story over production value and shows films about people fishing close to home rather than destination travel, and it is still run by essentially one person.
Matt Develin is a Missoula-based filmmaker and longtime fishing guide who founded and runs the Montana Fishing Film Festival, a touring program of independent fly fishing films.
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How did the Montana Fishing Film Festival start?
The Montana Fishing Film Festival grew out of a film called 10 Days, made by a group of broke young Missoula guides who bought a DSLR with a three-lens kit, shot for ten days on a southwest Montana fishery in the cold, and then returned the camera. The film was not going to get into the established tours, so the crew rented a small theater in Missoula, got a newspaper article, and sold tickets through fly shops. On the night of the screening they were driving home for camp chairs because more people wanted to sit at the back than the room held.
What gets a film into the festival?
The Montana Fishing Film Festival weights story above production value. Develin would rather show something shot on an action camera that leaves the audience feeling they know the subject than something beautifully shot in 12K that is ten minutes of music and dry-fly eats. The submission criteria are loose on geography and species, and tight on one thing: unpretentious people fishing close to home.
Why does the festival focus on trout?
Develin's argument is that trout are the international language of fly fishing: a trout in shallow water eating a dry fly is something almost every angler can relate to, whatever country they fish in. He deliberately steers the Montana Fishing Film Festival away from the destination-travel version of the sport, which he considers aspirational rather than realistic for most anglers. That does not exclude other fish - the festival has shown carp and smallmouth films - as long as the species is somebody's backyard species.
What is the film The Streak about?
The Streak is a 24-minute documentary about two lifelong friends in a river valley south of Missoula who have caught a trout from a drift boat every month for 19 straight years. The streak survived health problems, raising children and extreme weather, and it started only when the two realized they were already fishing every month anyway and decided to keep track. Develin describes The Streak as a film about friendship and family with the river as a character, and it closed the tour's lineup that year.
What was in the festival lineup that year?
The lineup ran seven films instead of the usual ten to twelve, with a few longer pieces, and at least three included women anglers. It included a film shot in Alaska, a smallmouth film from Michigan shot by a magazine's crew, a comedic piece from a filmmaker who grew up in Montana and moved to Los Angeles, and a film called Reset about an Army combat veteran who was medically discharged, dealt with PTSD, found fly fishing as a healing element, and now brings other veterans into the sport. Content had also come from Alberta and British Columbia in past years.
Can a grassroots film tour get sponsors?
Develin says the mainstream fly fishing industry has largely turned its back on the Montana Fishing Film Festival, and the year of this interview was a lean sponsorship year after the best one yet. The state film office remained a steady partner, and a drift boat builder built the tour a boat to take on the road. His response is to treat the lack of corporate backing as the point, since attendance and the experience of the people at the shows are the only measures he cares about.
How can a new fly fishing filmmaker get help?
Develin watches every submission to the Montana Fishing Film Festival himself and, when time allows, helps filmmakers restructure or recut a piece, on the view that editing decides the final film. A submission that does not make the lineup one year is usually the start of a relationship rather than a rejection. He was also preparing to co-teach an outdoor filmmaking course with a heavy fly fishing focus that August at a Missoula photography school established 30 years earlier.
Key takeaways
- The Montana Fishing Film Festival went from one Missoula screening seven years earlier to 26 stops across seven states, with films sourced from Alaska, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming.
- Story beats production value in submissions: action-camera footage with a subject the audience gets to know will be selected over polished footage with no narrative.
- The festival's programming premise is that trout is the common language of the sport, which is why it favors backyard species over destination travel films.
- The Streak runs 24 minutes and documents 19 consecutive years of catching a trout from a drift boat every month of the year.
- Submissions can be sent year-round by email or social message, and films that do not make one lineup often get editing feedback and a shot at a later year.
- Sponsorship for a grassroots tour is unreliable - the steady support came from a state film office and a boat builder, not the major tackle brands.
