Ada County Idaho Boise Film Festival
Boise gained a new cinema event almost overnight. The Boise Film Festival arrived with an announcement in April 2024 and a first edition that same October, which makes it one of the youngest festivals in this series and one of the few whose entire documented life fits inside two autumns. The organiser layer and the press layers agree on the published name, Boise Film Festival, and on the shape of the event: several days of feature and short film screenings in downtown Boise, Idaho, joined by industry panels, masterclasses and gala evenings. Because the record is short, it can be stated completely, and this article states it completely rather than padding it. Two editions stand documented, the inaugural gathering of October 2024 and a second edition in October 2025, and everything known about the festival hangs on those two Octobers.
About the Boise Film Festival
The festival is held in Boise, and Boise is the seat of Ada County, a point the press layers state plainly and one worth fixing at the outset because the event’s venues sit in the county seat’s downtown. The published name in the organiser and press layers is Boise Film Festival. One other name form exists in the record and needs careful handling: the festival’s own description on a film-submission listing platform opens with the words Boise International Film Festival. That phrasing belongs to the listing layer alone. It is not merged with the published name anywhere in this article, and it is never presented as the festival’s name, because no organiser or press layer uses it.
Behind the festival stand two people. Press layers from 2024 credit Christine and Mark Holder as the festival’s founders and executive directors, working through their production company, Wonder Street Entertainment. The couple moved to Boise in 2020, four years before the festival existed, and announced its creation in April 2024. The press layers also record the founders’ stated mission: they describe the event as a festival of discovery with a Pacific Northwest focus, a framing that points the programme toward new work and regional filmmaking rather than toward retrospectives or a single genre. One gap in the organiser record should be noted openly. Beyond the founders and their production company, no separate incorporated organiser name form appears in the layers searched, so none is invented here.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Published name | Boise Film Festival |
| Host city | Boise, the seat of Ada County |
| Founders | Christine and Mark Holder, founders and executive directors |
| Organiser form in the record | Wonder Street Entertainment, the founders’ production company |
| Stated mission | A festival of discovery with a Pacific Northwest focus |
| Documented editions | Inaugural, October 10 to 13, 2024; second, October 2 to 5, 2025 |
| Venues in 2024 | Screenings at the Egyptian Theater and The Flicks, with the awards gala at The Grove Hotel |
| Venues in 2025 | Panels at the Idaho Film Society, with the closing gala at The Grove Hotel |
| Admission | Passes and tickets sold through the festival’s own site; no prices captured in the layers searched |
| Attendance | No figure published in any layer searched |
History
The festival’s history begins with a move. Christine and Mark Holder arrived in Boise in 2020, and for four years there was no Boise Film Festival under their hand or anyone else’s in the record. Then, in April 2024, press layers reported that the couple had announced the creation of the festival, with themselves as founders and executive directors and Wonder Street Entertainment as the company behind it. That announcement is the stated founding record, and the inaugural edition followed within the same year. No earlier Boise Film Festival under this organiser exists in the layers searched, and this article claims none.
The inaugural edition ran from October 10 to 13, 2024. Screenings were split between two downtown rooms, the Egyptian Theater on West Main Street and The Flicks on West Fulton Street. The opening was ceremonial in a way that suited a first edition: the festival opened with a twentieth-anniversary screening of the film Miracle, and the edition closed its formal business with an awards gala at The Grove Hotel.
For a useful comparison, see the Ada County Idaho Jaialdi Basque Festival for another county festival.
The second edition ran from October 2 to 5, 2025, and the press and festival layers document a larger, more structured event. The programme held thirty-eight films in total: sixteen features, of which twelve were narrative and four documentary, alongside twenty-two shorts. Industry panels and masterclasses joined the screenings, with the masterclasses led by named filmmakers Heather Rae, Steven Susco and Tyler Cordova in the 2025 layers. The edition ended with a closing gala at The Grove Hotel. Two editions, two Octobers, and a stated mission are the whole of the documented history so far.
What to Expect
A visitor should expect a compact, screening-led festival. The core of both documented editions was the film programme itself: feature-length narrative and documentary work shown alongside a substantial block of shorts. In 2025 the balance ran to sixteen features and twenty-two shorts across four days, so short-form work is not a sideshow here but nearly three-fifths of the bill. Around the screenings sit the working parts of a young industry-facing event. Panels give filmmakers and audiences a room to talk in, and masterclasses put named practitioners in front of smaller groups for closer instruction.
The social frame is the gala. The first edition held an awards gala, the second a closing gala, and both took place at The Grove Hotel, which gives each edition a single formal evening to end on. Expect the geography to stay downtown and walkable in spirit: the documented rooms are established Boise cinema and gathering spaces rather than a festival-built site.
One expectation deserves correcting directly. The thirty-eight-film figure for 2025 describes the programme, nothing more. No attendance figure is published in any layer searched, so any claim about crowd size would be invention, and none is made here. What the record supports is a small, founder-run festival in its second year, programming with a discovery brief and a Pacific Northwest focus, not a mass gathering with published gate numbers.
Planning Your Visit
Because only two editions are documented, planning rests on their pattern rather than on long habit. Both editions fell in October and ran for four days, Thursday through Sunday in shape, so an October long weekend is the working assumption until the organisers announce otherwise. Passes and tickets are sold through the festival’s own site, according to the organiser layer. No prices were captured in the layers searched, so this article asserts no admission price; check the festival’s own site when sales open rather than relying on any figure repeated elsewhere.
Venues require year-specific attention. The 2024 edition screened at the Egyptian Theater on West Main Street and The Flicks on West Fulton Street, while the 2025 layers place panels at the Idaho Film Society on West Bannock Street and the closing gala again at The Grove Hotel, one layer printing the hotel’s address form on South Capitol Boulevard. Street numbers appear in the press layers as printed there and are not reproduced here. The practical lesson is that the venue set changed between the first and second editions, so last year’s room list should never be treated as this year’s. Downtown Boise lodging clusters around the gala hotel’s neighbourhood, and the documented venues all sit within the downtown core.
A Sample Itinerary From the Second Edition
The itinerary below follows the documented shape of the second edition, Thursday, October 2 to Sunday, October 5, 2025, and is labelled as that edition’s shape rather than a promise about any future year.
Thursday works as an arrival and opening day: settle into a downtown hotel, then spend the evening with the edition’s opening screenings, following the first edition’s habit of beginning with a ceremonial screening night. Friday divides between the screening rooms and the panel rooms, with industry panels at the Idaho Film Society on West Bannock Street balanced against feature screenings through the afternoon and evening. Saturday is the fullest day, the natural slot for masterclasses with the edition’s named filmmakers alongside the densest block of features and shorts. Sunday winds down through final screenings before the closing gala at The Grove Hotel ends the edition formally.
How It Compares
The most important comparison is a disambiguation. Boise is also home to the BoVi Film Festival, an older and entirely separate event. Per its own layers, BoVi was founded in 2011, and it has been returning under the name form Boise International Short Film Festival at Boise State’s Special Events Center. BoVi is not this festival, shares no organiser with it, and none of its facts are imported here. The resemblance matters for one practical reason: BoVi’s Boise International name form is the likely source of the stray Boise International Film Festival phrasing that opens this festival’s listing description. The two events should never be merged, and a reader searching under the international name may land on either, so checking the organiser credit, the Holders and Wonder Street Entertainment, is the reliable way to tell them apart.
Set against longer-running film festivals generally, the Boise Film Festival’s record is unusually short and unusually complete: a founding announced and an inaugural edition held within a single year, a second edition that added panels and masterclasses to the screening core, and no published attendance or pricing in the layers searched. Its identity rests on its founders’ stated discovery mission and Pacific Northwest focus rather than on scale.
Visitor Checklist
- Confirm the edition’s dates on the festival’s own site before booking travel, since no future edition is announced in the record.
- Buy passes or tickets through the festival’s own site, and expect to learn prices there, because none were captured in the layers searched.
- Check the current year’s venue list rather than reusing the 2024 or 2025 rooms, because the venue set changed between editions.
- Keep the Egyptian Theater, The Flicks and the Idaho Film Society distinct in your plans, since each hosted a different part of the documented editions.
- Reserve downtown lodging early for the October weekend, within reach of The Grove Hotel gala.
- Do not confuse this festival with the older BoVi event when searching listings, and verify the organiser credit before buying.
Beyond the Festival
Boise rewards the extra day. The festival’s documented venues trace a small map of downtown: West Main Street, West Fulton Street and West Bannock Street all sit within the central core, and South Capitol Boulevard carries the gala hotel’s address form in one 2025 layer. A visitor based downtown can move between screening rooms, panel rooms and the gala without leaving the neighbourhood, which makes the city itself part of the festival’s texture. October in the county seat also means the event lands in the middle of the autumn civic season, when Boise’s downtown restaurants and public spaces are at their most active. Treating the trip as a city weekend with a festival inside it, rather than a sealed festival campus, matches how both documented editions were actually arranged.
Why This Festival Matters
A festival founded by two people who moved to a city and then built the event they wanted carries a particular significance. The Holders’ stated mission, a festival of discovery with a Pacific Northwest focus, gives regional and emerging filmmakers a screen in the Ada County seat that did not exist in the record before April 2024. The second edition’s structure, adding panels and masterclasses with working filmmakers to a thirty-eight-film programme, suggests founders building an industry meeting place and not only a screening series. For Boise, the festival adds a young, founder-run institution to a downtown already dense with venues. Its significance is prospective rather than historical: two editions prove intention and follow-through, and the record now waits on a third.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the same event as Boise’s older international short film festival?
No. The Boise International Short Film Festival is the returning form of the BoVi Film Festival, founded in 2011 per its own layers and held at Boise State’s Special Events Center. It is a different, older event with its own organiser. The Boise Film Festival began with an announcement in April 2024 under Christine and Mark Holder, and its similar international phrasing appears only in a listing description, never as its name.
Who started the festival, and when did its first edition run?
Press layers credit Christine and Mark Holder as founders and executive directors, working through Wonder Street Entertainment. The couple moved to Boise in 2020, announced the festival’s creation in April 2024, and held the inaugural edition from October 10 to 13, 2024. No earlier edition under this organiser exists in the record.
Which rooms hosted the festival in 2024, and how did the set change in 2025?
In 2024, screenings ran at the Egyptian Theater on West Main Street and The Flicks on West Fulton Street, with an awards gala at The Grove Hotel. In 2025, the layers place panels at the Idaho Film Society on West Bannock Street and the closing gala at The Grove Hotel. The venue sets belong to their own years and should not be merged into one list.
Does the thirty-eight-film figure for 2025 say anything about audience size?
No. Thirty-eight is a programme count: sixteen features, twelve narrative and four documentary, plus twenty-two shorts. No attendance figure is published in any layer searched, so the size of the audience is simply not documented, and the film count must never be read as a crowd figure.
What to Expect From the Next Ada County Idaho Boise Film Festival
How often is Ada County Idaho Boise Film Festival held?
The record documents two editions in consecutive Octobers, 2024 and 2025, which points to an October rhythm. That is the whole of the evidence, and it is stated as a pattern drawn from two data points rather than as a long-standing annual tradition.
When is the next Ada County Idaho Boise Film Festival?
No third edition is announced in the record, so no date can be given. If the pattern of the two documented editions holds, an October date would be the reasonable expectation, but expectation is not confirmation, and no future date is presented here as confirmed.
Will the dates change?
They already have, within October. The inaugural edition ran October 10 to 13, 2024, and the second ran October 2 to 5, 2025, so the exact weekend moved between the festival’s first two years. A future edition could shift its dates again, and only an organiser announcement would settle them.
Closing
The Boise Film Festival is a small record told in full: founded by Christine and Mark Holder in 2024, screened across downtown Boise rooms, and documented through two October editions. Its next chapter depends on an announcement that has not yet appeared in the record, and when it does, it will extend a story that so far fits, honestly, on a single page of facts.
