When I came to the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in May 2025, I arrived with an ambitious vision for documenting the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in action: producing Festival Blog articles, an inaugural podcast, and a feature-length documentary. I wanted to capture not only the participants and attendees of the 2025 Youth and the Future of Culture program but also the people behind the scenes—those who pour months, if not years, of work into curating and building our annual cultural showcase. I had six months and seven interns to make it happen.

Our documentary is called Ctrl + Alt + HERITAGE: Youth and the Future of Culture. Like the familiar keyboard command that resets a frozen screen, Ctrl + Alt + HERITAGE speaks to a generation seizing control of their cultural narratives, offering an alternative to who gets to define heritage, and restarting the conversation about what tradition looks like when young people are at the center of it.

Compiled from over 9,000 video files—more than 12 terabytes of data—the film began as conversations between seven interns, their new mentor, and the Center’s curators. It transformed into a dynamic, youth-driven narrative capturing the performances, conversations, and demonstrations led by young tradition-bearers and their mentors, each backlit by a curator’s guiding vision.

This documentary wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Center and the enthusiastic willingness of the Festival’s participants to share their skills, stories, and perspectives. We would like to thank Anthony Verderame and Ryan Schumer for their work in the documentary’s final stages of editing and audio, as well as our editorial committee for ensuring this film embodies everything the Folklife Festival stands for: vitality, the preservation and innovation of tradition, and providing a platform for diverse, authentic cultures.

Annika Young is the communications and digital media coordinator for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.