Montana Filmmaker Wins International Award For Great Falls Documentary

Great Falls is home to some pretty awesome people and so much so, documentaries have been made about them - like the Feisty Women of Great Falls which you can actually view on YouTube below.

With that said, we can't forget about the person who oversaw the project and collaborated with several amazing people to earn herself recognition on the world stage.

Great Falls Filmmaker Wins Prestigious Award

Shannon Newth of Visit Great Falls recently celebrated a big win for the documentary courtesy of the Calgary Independent Film Festival.

"The goal of creating the Feisty Women of Great Falls was to capture the incredible stories of Mary Fields, Annie Busby, Nancy Russell, Alma Smith Jacobs, and Norma Ashby Smith, and share them with a wider audience," she said in a post to Facebook. "The film documents the women’s courage, determination, and contributions that helped shape the Great Falls community."

Feisty Women of Great Falls Award Reaction

I recently had a chance to catch up with Shannon to ask her about her major victory and what the international recognition means for Great Falls.

Chris: What does it mean for you to win an award like this for Great Falls?

Shannon: I think for people who live in Great Falls, you might understand this, that sometimes we can often feel like maybe a stepchild of the larger cities in Montana or people underestimate Great Falls.

And I think these stories really just shine a light on the incredible women that have come over the decades, last decades, many, many decades of great falls as history and just their, their tenacity, the inspiration determination that has shaped the community.

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And we still see that in, in who and what Great Falls is today. And so taking that with a little bit of a chip on our shoulder to say, Hey, no, we have fantastic people here who can do fantastic things and then getting that on a broader scale.

So those stories and Great Falls is being seen and heard and known in a positive light. And for it's all these wonderful attributes of, you know, grit and tenacity and authenticity and all of these things that these women's short stories highlight, that really is who we are as Great Falls today, showing that to the world. I'm very proud that this is a project that is getting some more exposure because I want that for our community and for these women's stories and legacies.

Chris: Can we expect a follow-up or a sequel to the Feisty Women of Great Falls?

Shannon: So... no specifics at this point. However, as part of our efforts at Visit Great Falls, we have great stories of Great Falls that we will continue to show and tell on our YouTube channel. That's where some of those live.

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So it's not just the Feisty Woman stories, but, but other great stories of Great Falls that we're sharing on there. So those are certainly continuing and there's definitely the possibility of highlighting some more fantastic, tenacious feisty women.

Congratulations to Shannon for putting Great Falls on the international stage.

Check out our full interview below and her film below after that!