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An Alberta-shot drama based on a 2006 short story by Irish author Colm Toibin will open the Calgary International Film Festival.

A Long Winter, a period drama that takes place in 1950s Montana, was filmed in Calgary and various locations in southern Alberta from October to December of 2025. It centres on a young man whose mother disappears during a blizzard. The film will open the 11-day festival on Sept. 24 at the Grand.

Directed by Andrew Haigh, the British filmmaker behind 2023’s romantic-fantasy All of Us Strangers, A Long Winter stars Fred Hechinger of HBO’s White Lotus, Kit Connor from Netflix’s Heartstopper, Emmy-nominated Oji-Cree actor D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai of Reservation Dogs and Ebon Che Moss-Bachrach from The Bear.

This will be the Alberta premiere of the film, part of a “first wave” of 18 movies announced this week by the film festival.

Other highlights include The Stunt Driver, an action-comedy starring Jay Baruchel and directed by Calgary expat Michael Dowse. Dowse, a former member of the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers, directed the 2002 mockumentary FUBAR and its 2010 sequel.

Scottish director Louis Paxton’s comedy-fantasy The Incomer starring Domhnall Gleeson, about siblings on a remote island, will make its Canadian premiere.

American filmmaker Josef Kubota Wladyka’s Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, starring Oscar-nominee Rinko Kikuchi of Babel, will have its Alberta premiere; Fatherland, a drama by Oscar-nominated Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski that takes place in post-war Germany, will make its Canadian premiere. Pawlikowski, who was nominated for an Oscar for 2019’s Cold War and whose 2015 film Ida won the Academy Award for Best International Feature, was awarded best director at Cannes for Fatherland.

American music documentaries The Best Summer and Frampton will both make Canadian premieres at the festival. The former, by Tamra Davis, chronicles the 1995 tour by the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Beck and Bikini Kill. Frampton, directed by Rob Arthur, follows the career of Peter Frampton.

The festival will also feature Canadian premieres of international titles, including Brazil’s Funk from director Aly Muritiba, the Mexican drama The Garden We Dreamed by filmmaker Joaquin del Paso and Jeremy Workman’s South Korean-American co-production School for Defectors, a documentary about a school for North Korean defectors.

The Spanish film Runner, about an elite athlete who suffers a breakdown before a race, will make its international premiere. The Canadian horror film X-Communicado, from director Brian King, will make its North American premiere.

American psychological film Sender, directed by Russell Goldman and starring Britt Lower and Jamie Lee Curtis, will make its international premiere, as will Megan Rico and Kade Atwood’s Edie Arnold Is a Loser, an American indie-comedy about a dork who starts a punk band at her all-girls Catholic school. The festival will screen Canadian premieres of American filmmaker Katie Aselton’s coming-of-age drama Their Town;  Act One, a thriller by American filmmaker Sophia Takal about a young actress who falls under the spell of a manipulative acting coach; and British eco-doc All the Rivers Spill Their Stories to the Sea from Jeanie Finlay about the aftermath of poisoned sea life washing to shore in England.

Calgary filmmaker Wendy Hill-Tout will present the world premiere of her documentary, WWW: The Women’s Group.

A full lineup will be announced by the festival on Aug. 26 at the festival’s annual Trailer Party at the Globe Cinema.

 The Calgary International Film Festival will be held at various venues in downtown Calgary from Sept. 24 to Oct. 4.