BILLINGS — Students from West High School in Billings celebrated the premiere of their new documentary “Finding Our Own Way” on Thursday, showcasing what it’s like to be an Indigenous student in Billings.
The film follows their Emmy-winning debut “Walking Between Two Worlds: The Urban Indigenous Youth Experience,” which took home the 2025 National Student Production Award for Nonfiction Long Form out of 1,700 entries nationwide.
For many students like Kolbi Johnston, filmmaking was completely new territory.
Watch students talk about their experience:
Billings Indigenous students premiere new documentary following national award
“I didn’t know any of it,” Johnston said Wednesday. “I can say personally that I never had, man, like handled a camera before, or like the audio, or like seeing the editing that goes behind, like interviews.”
The journey began with a mentoring workshop through MAPS Media, where students had just one week to create their documentary.
“You have like a week to make, like to get the film and everything and all the shots you want to have in your documentary,” Johnston said.
Their first film, “Walking Between Two Worlds: The Urban Indigenous Youth Experience,” took viewers through the lives of Indigenous people in Montana, comparing past and present experiences.
“How life was for them and then comparing to how life is for us like now and then the second one’s more based on the students like what life is like for them,” Johnston said.
The success of their Emmy win motivated the group to continue their storytelling journey.
“We put a lot of time and effort but like behind our shots and the like the story we were trying to capture to like there was a lot of effort that went behind that like us students alone and MAPS Media like everyone, even the Indigenous education department, they like everybody like all 10 toes down,” Johnston said.
Senior Blake Gipson explained that their second film, “Finding Our Own Way,” focuses more specifically on student experiences.
“The main message for the second one, it was our story instead of the elders,” Gipson said. “We’re really looking for like how it is to be Native Indigenous person in Billings.”
The documentary serves a dual purpose – educating viewers about Native people in Montana while giving students a platform to share their own stories.
“It makes me feel just great. Like we did that,” Gipson said. “It meant something big was accomplished and we were able to accomplish that.”
