In a picturesque town, a man named “anyone" rejoices in the beauty of everyday life and celebrates the natural world. The people around him, however, are more focused on conforming to modern society, and ostracize anyone for being different.

Anyone lived in a pretty how town

Eki, living by the landfill, searches for a memento to honor his late mother. Battling the relentless rain, landslides, and looming threats from scavengers and machinery, he fears her memory could be lost beneath the waste forever.

My Plastic Mother

At the dawn of an apocalyptic event, as society and civility stand on the brink, an unwanted visitor knocks on the door where a group of displaced neighbors shelter together.

Can I Come In?

A priest must reconcile his lifelong dogmatic views on suffering with real life pain, examining how we will die, the intersection of faith and death, and specifically with how we may, or may not, be called to suffer at the inevitable end. Set against the backdrop of medical aid in dying, and death with dignity. 
There are many kinds of death. And some are better than others. The best are peaceful, where we leave each other in love. Memento Amoris. Remember you must love.
 — Alex Garland (Dr Ian Kelson)

Sit with Me While I Die

After meeting online, a BOY and GIRL are out on their first date. It rapidly devolves into the BOY vomiting out his life in a Howl that ultimately encompasses the entire universe.

Why Dogs Howl

Goody follows twenty-year old Guelia Pedat, raised Catholic by her overbearing mother and unknowingly suffering from OCD that manifests through an irrational adherence to religious rituals. After losing her faith and years after the death of her beloved older brother she still blames herself despite a lack of involvement. Throughout this Southern Gothic Coming of Age story, Goody connects to childhood friends and navigates new relationships as she spirals to new lows and must find a way to free herself from grief.

Goody

A frustrated actress looses her temper with an indie film director.

WANNA BE A STAR!

In early 2025 a breach at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory puts residents of Oak Ridge and surrounding counties at risk. During a mandatory curfew imposed by local officials, a man reluctantly allows strangers who show up at his doorstep to spend the night waiting inside, and it quickly becomes evident that things are not as they seem.

The Recluse

A mysterious young girl races to free a doomed calf from a factory farm before it's too late.

Liberation

A mysterious video game kit brings the game to life, and a group of afterschool kids must uncover what’s happening—and how to stop it.

GONS

Marci’s arrival to a new city finds her facing a crippling fear that conflicts with her determination to fulfill a promise. She follows a handsome local barista named Kurt to his home and work in search of an answer to her pressing question. Marci’s opportunities, days, and courage dwindle as she holds out for the right moment, the right place, and the right sign. As time runs out, she must confront what brought her to Kurt and reveal the truth to him.

Intertwined

"I'll bring Shiro to you.I promise!" Jin, the cat, made this promise to Mugi, who is deeply sad about losing her beloved dog, Shiro.
Jin loves Mugi very much and, after hearing the story of the "Rainbow Bridge" from his owner Aki, he decides to take Mugi to meet Shiro at theRainbow Bridge! Can Jin heal Mugi's sadness? With the help of nearby pigeons and squirrels, Jin's great plan is now underway!

BRIDGE -My Little Friends-

"Fulfilling the Promise" is a timely portrait of civic education that asks a question at the heart of the American experiment: are we living up to our founding principles?
Through four schools in Brooklyn, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Durango, Colorado, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the film shows how teachers and students bring the Declaration of Independence to life, discussing its principles through the framework of civil discourse. 
Not merely an appreciation of the history of the Declaration, this documentary explores how teachers and students play a vital role in keeping these principles alive and, as Dr. King noted in his “I have a Dream” speech, better fulfilling the promise of the Declaration as a promissory note for future generations.

Fulfilling the Promise — Teachers, Students, and the Declaration of Independence

Comedy Damage is a dark comedy about a burned out, middle aged comedian who pays a visit to an "Entertainment
Psychologist." He hopes to get his mojo back, but more importantly, his comedy license, as in this dystopian world,
comedy is highly regulated by an impenetrable government bureaucracy.

Comedy Damage

Big Wishes for Little Feat: A magical tale set in the Kingdom of Belgium. A story that will ignite the imagination with rich colorful illustrations by award-winning, Italian illustrator, Paolo d’ Altan. Central to the book’s charm is imagery of stars and constellations to which a little girl and her horse both look for inspiration, confidence, and faith in themselves, as they learn how to turn disappointments into achievements. A tale about true friendship, facing and overcoming obstacles and, most importantly, always believing. A quirky aunt adds to the fun of this tale of, happy endings and new beginnings

BIG WISHES for LITTLE FEAT

A young couple on vacation deal with insecurities arising as they talk about their future together.

Not Enough

A heartwarming animated micro-short that brings the magic of children's literature to the screen. Beneath a sky filled with stars, Ella and Little Feat embark on a journey of friendship, perseverance, and wonder. Inspired by the constellation Pegasus, they learn that dreams, determination, and a little bit of belief can carry them farther than they ever imagined.

My Lucky Star

A wisecracking guardian and her favorite nemesis wage a secret, slapstick war over one blissfully oblivious family. 
Foxy is the guardian assigned to one ordinary family who have no idea they're being protected… or hunted. When her recurring nemesis Viper resurfaces with an arsenal of stuff toys and icecream, Foxy and her comms-tech Angie have one chaotic afternoon to keep the peace without the family ever noticing the cartoon war raging just out of frame.

Guardian Angels

Dylan's sleepless nights come back to haunt him.

Conscious

"Equus" is a music video created by the critically-acclaimed Australian progressive metal band Ne Obliviscaris. The song appears on the band's latest album, 'Exul'. It's about the people and animals who were killed or displaced during the brushfires that occured in Australia from 2019-2020. 
Included in our submission is a short explanatory video from the song's lyricist, director and producer, Xen.

Equus

Thirteen-year-old Mitchell dreams of becoming a cop and helping people in trouble. Being bullied at school for his weight, Mitchell feels rejected and unseen—until a frightening moment forces him to face real danger, summon true courage, and discover the hero within.

Somebody's Hero

A disgraced athlete seeking a second chance enrolls in an exclusive self-improvement retreat where success comes at an unimaginable price. As the program’s methods grow increasingly disturbing, she must decide just how much she's willing to sacrifice to reclaim her future.

Happy Pines

Oh the misery of high school detention! An imaginative and antsy young student is sent to detention and wastes the time away by day dreaming about kicking his teacher’s ass.

Detention!

Drafted by the Detroit Tigers 50 years ago, Mike Wilson never made it to the Major Leagues. Instead, he devoted his life to coaching youth baseball in Detroit, continuing a legacy started by his father. Now overseeing historic Hamtramck Stadium, the former Negro League ballpark where he fell in love with the game, Mike’s story reveals how mentorship, community, and baseball can shape generations.

The Bridge

Listen is a short documentary exploring the resurgence of vinyl records & physical media, digging deep into music's power in our everyday lives.

Listen: LP's & The Power Of Music

A cry drifts on the wind, beckoning the Pilgrim toward a cavern deep beneath a sacred mountain. There, in the mountain’s heart, they commune with a fading god and receive a cryptic vision of a path that could change the fate of the world. At a crossroads between the known and the unknowable, the Pilgrim must make a choice that will shape everything to come.

When Mountains Speak

A woman visits a botanist with the power to bend nature itself, and with her enchanted herb she journeys through space and time to reach her husband, only to learn that saving him may unleash a dangerous new future.

Temporia

In a nameless land, at night, two teenagers who communicate through an invented sign language decide to escape. Wrapped in blankets, they cross an arid and hostile territory toward an invisible border. Unseen by those who watch, they run toward freedom, while indifference turns into tragedy. THE BORDER is a silent, universal fable about love, war, and the moment when it is already too late to choose.

THE BORDER

A surprise visit between estranged sisters over family keepsakes reopens old wounds neither is prepared to relive.

Stranger's

A family facing an impossible situation must decide how far they're willing to go for the people they love.

5 Hours Earlier

When a popular
high school girl lands her
dream homecoming date,
she awakens into a
psychological nightmare
where a single pimple on
her face mutates into a
relentless force that strips
her confidence, distorts her
reality, and leaves scars
far deeper than the mirror
can show.

The Lizard

Where the Horses Heal the Soul follows children, adults, and veterans living with physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges. At ROCK Ride On Center for Kids, a Texas nonprofit providing equine-assisted services, they find a lifeline forward through the bond between human and horse. As participants enter the arena, uncertainty slowly gives way to confidence. Through the motion of riding and the calming presence of horses, walls begin to come down and healing takes hold. This documentary is a moving portrait of breakthrough and determination as participants at ROCK discover connection, courage, and purpose, revealing how horses can help transform lives.

Where the Horses Heal the Soul

Official Selection:
2026 Atlanta Film Festival
2026 RiverRun International Film Festival
2026 Macon Film Festival
2026 OUT at the Movies International Film Festival
2026 Cinema Diverse: The Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival
2026 Tryon International Film Festival
A man attempts to keep his terminal illness a secret while attending a wedding, but an unexpected romance reshapes his future as well as his past.

Summer Lost

A young couple with conflicting desires for intimacy attempt to navigate the emotional complexities of what should be a joyful one-year anniversary.

Sky to Soil

Two passionate lovers unite their artistic souls on a canvas, channeling their deepest emotions and shared experiences. As their painting evolves, it becomes a reflection of their connection and relationship.

Masterpiece

Heart Horse is a short documentary set in the golden light of Alicante, Spain, following Ebba Nilsson, a young equestrian, and Ella, her mare of nine years. When everything in her life changed, Ebba let go of almost everything she had built, and turned down a fortune, to keep the one horse she trusts completely. A quiet portrait of devotion, and the rare trust between a rider and her horse.

Heart Horse

An aspiring opera singer prepares for his big break audition while balancing his responsibilities as a father and husband.

Figaro, Figaro

empty nester: a term used to describe a parent whose children have grown up and left home.

empty nester.

When a drunken teenage kiss propels Janie and Alex's quirky friendship into a hidden love affair, the conservative ideologies of their hometown force them to confront the truth about their sexualities, and the bitter future of their relationship.

Whistle Down Wind

Before Our Vows follows Evelyn and Calvin on the morning of their wedding, when they choose to run from the ceremony and spend the day together instead. As they wander through the city, sharing small and spontaneous moments, they begin to create their own version of what a wedding day and marriage can be. Through some dreamy visuals and overlapping vows, the film will explore how two people from different worlds can come together without losing themselves. It's not a story about escaping commitment, but about choosing a love that's honest and true.

Before Our Vows

A newly-dead soul awakens outside the gates of Heaven.

Pearly Gate

After a simple command crosses a line, one boy becomes witness to a revolution that he never meant to start.

Revolution

In 2035, Iris uses her AI for everything. But when her AI runs out of battery, she's left with... herself. Welcome to the future of helplessness.

Primitive

A reserved college student reluctantly shares a deeply personal love story with his best friend, recounting a vibrant, complicated “relationship” that shaped his childhood and still tugs at his heart, forcing him to confront what he truly left behind.

Home

Holding On To Xiao

Armed only with his mom's instructions, a clueless boy's attempt to cook dinner is seasoned with chaos and served with a side of mayhem.

Cooked!

Amid the pressure of his band’s debut performance, a drummer strains to keep time and rhythm under the scrutiny of an unforgiving audience; only to lead to a profound realization that changes everything.

finding rhythm

Seven-year-old Fran makes a pact with his mother to learn everything about his father at the age of fourteen.

Little

People in communities like Hartford and Newport lost virtually everything in Helene's flooding. This is their story of healing amid the hardship of restarting.

Healing from Helene

A young family finds purpose and sustenance from their family garden

Roots at Home

A twenty something attends her first party in the big city.

First Night Out

The Little Mermaid

The woman with one eye and one glove is visited by a man who has known her for many years. It is he who narrates her life, starting with a past in which she was “whole,” almost perfect.
But as the narrative progresses, the tone shifts. The man begins to describe her as a monstrosity, breaking her down into pieces and erasing her identity.

Half a Woman

A mysterious accident leaves an astronaut floating in space. She encounters living stars in different stages of the star cycle as she journeys to find their creator.

Stardust to Stardust

In the sacred geography of the Cherokee homeland, rivers do not merely cut through the land—they carry memory, sustenance, and spirit. They are the lifeblood of a people whose connection to water predates written history. This documentary seeks to honor that connection, with humility and care, through the voices of those who know it best: Cherokee elders, leaders, stewards, and visionaries.
From the crystalline streams of the Oconaluftee to the broader reach of the Little Tennessee and Tuckasegee Rivers, we follow the course of “Long Person” (Yvwi Ganvhida) — a revered being in Cherokee cosmology, whose head begins in the mountains and whose feet reach the sea. 
This deeply symbolic understanding reflects both a cosmological truth and an ecological mandate: to live in harmony with the river, and to protect it, as it has always protected us.

Honoring Long Person

Four strangers. Four weeks. Seventeen rescued horses. They arrive to learn about horses, only to discover the horses have something to teach them about themselves. Medicine of the Herd is a feature documentary that follows four strangers through a month-long immersive retreat with a herd of seventeen rescued horses in Northern Nevada. They arrive to learn about horses, only to discover the horses are teaching them. Through relationships built on trust, choice, and mutual respect, each participant is invited into a journey of healing, connection, and a deeper understanding of what the horse-human bond can become.

Medicine of the Herd

After fleeing a battlefront in an apocalyptic America, four teenage soldiers find refuge in a house built on memory. As the group unwinds in their new surroundings, they learn that shelter doesn’t always mean safety. Group leader Natalie must find a way to protect her friends.

Toy Soldiers

Embrace is a psychological drama that explores how trauma echoes across generations, revealing how we often fail to recognize in others what we refuse to face in ourselves. The film follows Douglas, a withdrawn war veteran struggling with depression, who is forced to confront his emotional isolation when his estranged daughter comes to live with him, only to recognize his own inner turmoil reflected back in her. The film seeks to create an experience that is both deeply personal and universally resonant, with the goal of bringing awareness to challenging issues such as PTSD, suicide, and self-harm.

Embrace

Living Archive is a documentary short celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Warren Carson, an educator, scholar, and community leader whose commitment to literature, service, and mentorship shaped generations of students and citizens. Through interviews, poetry, and archival storytelling, the film explores how one life can inspire countless others.

Living Archive

The Voice of Despair delivers a powerful affecting narrative told from a new perspective - that of an unborn child. Conceived because of a brutal sexual assault, the film brings the audience within the womb of his mother.
As the war rages on outside, The Voice of Despair through this haunting inner monologue, explores the silent traumas of the Ukrainian war, the violation of innocence, and the unspoken resilience. It sheds light on the personal cost of conflict through a voice that was never intended to be heard.

THE VOICE OF DESPAIR

A Japanese immigrant’s photography and passion for the Appalachian mountains in the 1920’s changed America. For almost 100 years George Masa’s story was a mystery - until now.

A Life Reimagined: The George Masa Story

After a young man awakes from a hypnotic trance in a strange land he must search high and low for a way to escape his lonely existence. Will his curiosity and ingenuity be able to withstand repeated failures and the familiar draw to complacency, or will he find a way to break through his limits and explore the great beyond?

Bloom

Afloat follows Owen, a young man burdened by shame, fear, and trauma, who returns home and takes an experimental pill meant to erase emotional pain. What he hopes will heal him only makes things worse.

Afloat

Set against the cultural upheaval of 1960s New York City, the musical-drama 'Blue Wednesday' follows Jackie, an orphan suddenly given the chance to attend college, who becomes caught between the promised future she’s been handed and the gritty, awakening world of artists and activists fighting for change. As the truth behind her mysterious benefactor is revealed, Jackie must choose who she wants to become, and what she’s willing to risk to get there.

Blue Wednesday

FREE JOAN LITTLE tells the story of the 1975 groundbreaking case of Joan Little who was the first woman in U.S history to be acquitted for using deadly force to resist sexual assault. Joan was a Black incarcerated woman in North Carolina who killed her white prison guard who was trying to rape her. Little’s murder trial became a cause celebre bringing together prominent advocates, black power activists , white feminists and anti-death penalty activists while catalyzing a nationwide discussion on sexual assault. With rare archival footage, contemporary interviews and the folk anthem that carried her cause, FREE JOAN LITTLE captures the spirit of resistance that made history.

Free Joan Little

An intimate look at the personal stories of eight congregants of The Dwelling - a faith group ministering to the needs of the local unhoused community of Winston - Salem. Using an innovative approach to creative writing & to increasing self-awareness, local non-profit Authoring Action encouraged and challenged the participants in crafting their powerful stories.

The Dwellers

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Join us for the 2026 Tryon International Film Festival! Whether you're looking for a film you weren't able to make it to because of another event, or you weren't able to join us in person, we've got you covered! Available Oct 12-18, 2026.

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