Colorado Springs School District 11 and the Youth Documentary Academy (YDA) have joined forces in 2022 to organize the first-ever Youth Media Matters Film Festival to be held in Colorado Springs from February 28-March 5. A red-carpet closing night screening and celebration will be open to the public and held on Saturday, March 5, at 6:30 p.m. This event will feature Oscar-nominated Bing Liu presenting his Sundance award-winning film Minding the Gap.

During the prior week students will be attending festival screenings, meeting filmmakers, and engaging in community conversations. Panels and Q&A will follow each of the film screenings to discuss stories as diverse as teen mental health, race, gender, and body image. In the evening, we welcome Bing Liu and his Oscar-nominated film Minding the Gap as our closing night event.

Minding the Gap is a coming-of-age saga of three skateboarding friends in their Rust Belt hometown. In his quest to understand why he and his friends all ran away from home when they were younger, Bing follows 23-year-old Zack as he becomes a father and 17- year-old Keire as he gets his first job. While navigating a complex relationship between his camera and his friends, Bing explores the gap between fathers and sons, between discipline and domestic abuse, and ultimately that precarious chasm between childhood and becoming an adult.

General seating will be first some first served.