GENERATION NEXT

Generation Next is CIFF's youth-focused film series. Heading into its third year, the Series empowers youth ambassadors to hand-pick films relevant to their generation and gives a new voice to the youth perspective.

CIFF collaborates with 10 high school students grades 9-12 to select and watch films, curating an important part of the festival's lineup.

The curated films will also have high school curriculum ties, and teachers can sign-up for a field trip to watch a film during the school day on select dates during the 2020 festival. Registration for Generation Next opens Spring/Summer 2020. Sign up here to get email updates.

The 21st Calgary International Film Festival takes place Sep. 24 - Oct. 4, 2020.

NEW: Teachers can sign up their classrooms to watch 2019 Generation Next selection, 2040 for free. LEARN MORE

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explore LAST YEAR's generation next lineup

2040

(2019). Directed by Damon Gameau. Australia. 92 minutes. G.

Award-winning director Damon Gameau embarks on a journey to explore what the future could look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet. Structured as a visual letter to his 4-year-old daughter, Damon blends traditional documentary with dramatised sequences and high-end visual effects to create a vision board of how these solutions could regenerate the world for future generations. Streaming free for teachers and their classrooms now!

A Colony

(2018). Directed by Geneviève Dulude-De Celle. Canada. 101 minutes. French with English subtitles. 14A. Coarse Language. 

Mylia (Emilie Bierre), a timid 12-year-old child, is about to leave her native countryside to begin high school. Lost in this new hostile environment, she copes as well as she can, sometimes awkwardly, dealing with the absurdities, discomforts and small victories of adolescence. Along the way she encounters Jimmy (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie), a young indigenous outsider from the neighbouring reserve, who will help her stand her ground and embrace who she really is.

Butterfly

(2018). Directed by Alessandro Cassigoli & Casey Kauffman. Italy. Italian with English subtitles. 80 minutes. PG. 

18-year old Irma "The Butterfly" Testa is Italy’s first female boxer to make it to the Olympics. It’s a remarkable outcome for a girl raised in one of the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods of Naples. The more Irma succeeds though, the more fragile she becomes. After a crushing defeat at the Games in Rio, she questions whether boxing is her future. She wants to chart her own path, but must first take a hard look at her personal life which she has avoided for so long.

Land of Glass

(2018). Directed by Jeppe Vig Find & Marie Dalsgaard Rønn. Denmark. Danish with English subtitles. 88 minutes. PG. 
While home alone one weekend, 13-year-old Jas finds a girl and an old lady hiding in his barn. Their hair is wild, their clothes are strange and they say they come from the forest. They quickly become friendship and Jas soon discovers that they are not human at all, but rather elves on the run from sinister forces. Someone is trying to get their hands on the their magical healing pearls, without which, the elves cannot survive. Poachers and strange secret agents are now seen in the area as Jas suddenly finds himself mixed up in a race through the forest to save his new friends.

Standing On the Line

(2019). Directed by Paul Emile D’Entremont. Canada. English/French with English subtitles. 81 minutes.

Breaking the code of silence that prevails on the field, on the ice and in the locker room, this film takes a fresh and often moving look at some of our gay athletes, who share their experiences with the camera. They’ve set out to overcome prejudice in the hopes of changing things for the athletes of tomorrow.

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open

(2019). Directed by Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn. Canada. 105 minutes. 16mm. 14A. Coarse Language. 

Two Indigenous women from vastly different backgrounds find their worlds colliding on an East Vancouver, B.C. sidewalk when brutality and fear drives one of them out from her home and into the cold rain. As this intimate yet challenging encounter develops, what began as violent and terrifying, tentatively expands as the women’s shared imagery and cultural experience weave a fragile bond between them. Both women now must face their own unique struggle as they navigate the complexities of motherhood, class, race, and the ongoing legacy of colonialism.

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