Highlands Cashiers Film Festival

The Highlands–Cashiers Film Festival celebrates the art of storytelling through film. We showcase curated and independent films from around the world in competitive categories, sharing stories that inspire, connect, and reveal our shared humanity. By creating a unique in-person experience that brings audiences and filmmakers together, the festival—supported by the Performing Arts Center and powered by community spirit—champions creativity and cinema’s enduring power to illuminate the extraordinary in everyday life.

The Highlands–Cashiers region is a natural destination for arts, culture, and community. The festival's greatest strength is its setting: intimate, scenic, and rooted in mountain identity. Following a curated, boutique model inspired by Telluride, early Sundance, and other high-touch mountain gatherings, it emphasizes experience over volume. It is a festival people return to each year for a sense of connection, discovery, and place: a signature cultural gathering in the mountains, an unforgettable weekend where film, community, and nature converge to support the Performing Arts Center, creating shared, in-person experiences no screen at home can replicate.

Throughout the year, Film Fest Prelude brings favorites from the 2026 festival back to the big screen, alongside new discoveries, on our way to the Highlands–Cashiers Film Festival, September 22–26, 2027.

For more information, visit: www.highlandscashiersfilmfestival.com