Calgary’s Homegrown Film Festival levels up in second year

Do you know someone who likes to make movies and wants to learn how to improve?

The deadline to register for Calgary’s Homegrown Short Film Showcase is Sept. 1.

The small festival is for people at the beginning of their filmmaking journey to share their creations.

Now in its second year, the festival runs from Oct. 17-18, and features screenings, panels, Q&As, and an international collaboration with filmmakers in Ecuador. It’s open to creators of all ages and experience, and celebrates originality over polish.

This year’s showcase comes as Homegrown YYC, the non-profit behind the event, secures new funding and expands its vision.

“As of December, Homegrown is incorporated as a non-profit organization,” says director Guillermo Barraza. “Our main mission is to help youth with being able to create and engage with multimedia and media in general. And we do that by creating mentorships and resources. We’re building a website that’s going to be super potent and impactful.”

The group’s approach blends creative skills with mental health awareness — an intentional overlap shaped by Barraza’s wife, a social worker of more than 10 years.

“We’re coming together to kind of live within that intersection of mental health and media production,” he explains. “We just received two massive grants that are going to allow us to really move in the direction of being able to provide these workshops.”

One grant, from the Calgary Foundation, will fund a mentorship development program, and another from Calgary Arts Development will support the October showcase — one of two annual gatherings designed to bring the community together.

The mentorship program will extend beyond filmmaking into other forms of storytelling.

“We’re expanding into marketing and PR… but we’re looking far beyond that,” Barraza says. “We’re looking for cultural storytellers, musicians, traditional dancers, that sort of thing. Anything that tells a story, we want to have folks who can do that.”

Barraza’s long-term plan is to build an intentional creative pipeline, providing opportunities through mentorship, production, and showcases, with the hopes that participants could eventually return as mentors themselves.

“Eventually we’re going to create this little ecosystem of folks that go in through our mentorship program, get mentored, create a thing, and then that thing is now showcased at the showcase in October,” he says.

He says he program will begin with post-secondary students, with a future goal of reaching ages 12–18 once the model is tested.

The Homegrown Short Film Showcase runs Oct. 17-18. For more information, you can email community@wearehomegrown.ca.