Program 2026
All screenings and Exhibits take place in the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center.
March 5 - 8, 2026
Thursday, March 5
Student Works!
2025 Compilation of Student Works.
Like what you see? Come to the 2026 screening on Thursday night!
8:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Location: Bloch Learning & Performance Hall
30+ Films & Animations from WVU, regional & global student creatives. Selected works cover the full gamut of genres and styles, with both experimental and tried-and-true techniques in the pursuit of good storytelling and personal expression. The screening is not to be missed!
A Giant of Limitless Power at Man's Command • Shelby Blair
Black Saturday! • Alexander Colt Young
Carnival • Paul Lilyea
Cliffs & Beyond • Ada Chen
Cradle • Elliot Bloniarz
Doomstroll • Taylor James Arnett
Flash Forward • Madison LaVigne
Forever Fetch • Evangeline Van Meter
Hunger • Taylor Bellah
I fear what's in my cells • Aiden Crawford
Mephisto • Abhigyan Ravichandran
Miracles Happen Everyday • Sloane Ren
Ohio River Bridge Crossing • Braden T. Burnside
Only U - A Virtual Skate. Boarding Mon • Dinosaur Gym
Petty People • Yang Yi
Picture Me Better (10 Minute Cut) • Xavier Alexander
Prophecy • Sol Kim
Rotten • Marilyn Bell
Serenity • Snow Chen
Snow Day • Olivia Nestor
The Bunny • Isaiah Supadi, Oscar Smith
The Cluckening • Thee Bosley
The Last Snap (mic drop) • Jermaine Carter
The Red Thread • Peyton Rhian Fitz
Year of the Fire Horse • Nancy Parshall
You Look Familiar • Brooke Holler
You've Got a Mothman in Me • Akira Jakkson
Balzingers Pilot Pt. 1 & 2 • Gabriel Marcum
Ruminations and Abstractions
A selection of video installations, screen-based performance and VR works which reveal wonders - and phantasms - at the edge of experience.
Friday, March 5 - Sunday, March 8
Noon - 11:00 PM
Location: Paul Mesaros Gallery, 3rd Floor
seen, stored, remembered • Tracy Miller-Robbins
The Gravedigger's Spy • Sylvia Toy
Trash Wolves • Jeanne Stern
A Life Half-Lived • Rob Munday
Caffeine Phosphene Reverie • Alanna Floreck
Île tête nue • Aitor Ibáñez
Surface Recordings: Palo Duro Red / Ogallala Unfiltered • Andrew Weathers
Doxology for Ella May Wiggins • by Jonathan Furnell, Rachel Pittman
Friday, March 5 - Sunday, March 8
Noon - 11:00 PM
“Slab” practice space
2nd Floor
NECROPOLIS • Millie Dread
Interview • Michael Mersereau
Midst the Sky • Kiley Brandt
Friday, March 6
Animation Workshops
Come join Us For Two Amazing Animation workshops
Open to the Public!
Location: Intermedia Lab, Rm 5018
10:00 - 11:30 AM
Modularity, Loops, and Iteration
Presented by Pittsburgh based artist Scott Turri
In this workshop, Scott Turri will illustrate how he uses three main tenets, Modularity, Loops, and Iteration, to construct his animations using Adobe Animate. He will provide a glimpse into his working methods by showing how he uses modularity within individual animations and then retools various components through iterative processes for scene building in other animations. This workshop will illustrate the possibilities of Adobe Animate for creating rhythm and pattern in your projects.
Materials: None required. Participants are invited to watch, listen and ask questions, or they may bring laptops with Adobe Animate installed to further learn about its capabilities. This is not a requirement however.
This workshop has a maximum of 12 participants
and is offered IN PERSON ONLY!
1:00 - 4:00 PM
Paper Cut-Out Animation
Presented by Austin based artist Jeanne Stern
Participants will create stop-motion animated shorts using paper cut-outs. Simple techniques such as replacement animation techniques, hinging, silhouettes, and animation principles will be covered. Working in small groups, participants will begin with a series of warm-up exercises before proceeding on to making short projects.
Materials: Please bring a smart phone for shooting. We will be working with a free application called Stop Motion Studio which can be installed on Android or iPhone.There is also a $10 version that can be installed on a laptop and used with a DSLR or web camera. Tripods will be provided for use with smart phones in groups, but you are invited to bring your own tripod if you wish to work solo.
This workshop has a maximum of 12 participants
and is offered IN PERSON ONLY!
Cyber Lounge
5:00 - 6:30 pM
Filmmaker/Artist Hangout
Location: Drawing Studio
Friday, March 6
All Films to be Shown in The Bloch Learning & Performance Hall
OPENING SHOWCASE
& TIME
Opening Film Showcase Compilation.
Please join us to watch these incredible films!
Opening Film Showcase
& Compilation
6:30 - 8:00 pM
This 90-minute opening presentation features 12 outstanding and unique works of various genres and styles, highlighting the diverse filmmakers whose wide range of ideas and interests - from intimately personal stories, to zany humor, to political expressions of contempt - embody the festival’s core value of authenticity, innovation and rich variety.
PAPA • Florias Welch Gallay
Flow of Being • Helen Unt
Bug • Pat O'Connor
Dizzy Cavalry • Patrick Doyon
Tarfu Bravo Zulu • Jonathan Kiefer
Primetime Mr. President • Saif Alsaegh
Macabre • Jonah Manibusan
Patch • Meg Cook
Memories of the Little Pond • Yeon Choi
Screen Memory • Maggie Murphy
Where the Rhododendron Grow • Erin Draxler
Project Selkie • Ryleigh Moule
Artist Q & A
Time
8:45 - 10:00 pM
A selection of works that ruminate on light and darkness, the malleability of time, the geological, social, and philosophical meanings of time, as well as the fleeting or expansive experience of time.
A video about red balloons • Walter Smits
fracture summer • Kym McDaniel
Purgatorio • Auden Lincoln-Vogel, Stephanie Miracle and Philip Rabalais
How Now, House? • Tess Martin
Buses don't stop here anymore • Penny McCann
Out of Nowhere • Billy Palumbo
Voices of the mountains • Laboratory for visual storytelling
10 52 • Amirmohammad Zand
Artist Q & A
Filmmaker Hangout
10:30 pM
Location: Gene's Beer Garden
461 Wilson Ave, Morgantown, WV 26501
Saturday, March 7
All Films will be Shown in The Bloch Learning & Performance Hall
Integrating
12:00 - 1:30 pm
This 90-minute selection features 10 highly original works which, while very different in ways, all seem to share one thing in common: an expressed need or desire to rectify, to reconcile, to synthesize or understand, or to bring into balance, the past and the present - to integrate.
Dollhouse Elephant • Jenny Jokela
beyond the supernova • Masha Kochanenkova
You Do Not Exist • Dwayne LeBlanc
All of This Must Be Paid For • Gabi Rudin
The Box • Caroline Rumley
Noli me tangere • Mahda Purmehdi
Fačuk • Maida Srabovic
Fumble • Mahsa Talebiani
giiwe πρό bizhiw / bizhiw πρό giiwe • mystery byrd
Hiding Places • Magdalena Bermudez
Landscape Convergences
2:00 - 3:30 pM
The 11 works in Landscape Convergences focus on human encounters and integrations with the natural environment, where specific places on the surface of the earth seem to serve as vehicles of sorts for human expression, for the production of myth, for testaments to history and struggle, and for marking presence.
Alpine Tundra • Kathleen Rugh
Sulfur • Karen Akerman, Miguel Seabra Lopes
Hurricane Season • Michelle Trujillo
Fjord Time • Jonathan Onsuwan Johnson, Carleen Maur
In its fertile shade • Andrés Dávila
WHY-EEELA • Ian Gibbins
amphibolos lithos • Valery Grysha
Katelin Describes a Crisis • Stephen Wardell
Las Animas • Matt Feldman
Linija Među Nama/ A Line Between Us • Milena Jovićević
A select screening of Associate Professor Chris Haddox’s film “Voices Faintly Heard” followed by a live musical performance.
“Voices Faintly Heard” is a 37-minute film that serves as an introduction to a landscape, its people and their music. As a largely Scots Irish population began populating what is now southern West Virginia in the late 19th century, they brought with them not only their physical objects, but a musical repertoire of songs with roots in 17th and 18th century England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Not only were these songs passed down intact through families, but they were also modified and reimagined by others—some of them ended up on early recordings of the nascent commercial record industry.
Chris Haddox is an Associate Professor in the WVU School of Art and Design. Born and raised in Logan, WV, he took up music at an early age but was only partially aware of the significant musical history of his home area until the late 1980s when he “stumbled upon” the Chappell Collection in the West Virginia and Regional History Collection contained in the West Virginia University Library. Since then, he has spent his time trying to piece together the stories of the people and places behind the music.
The Folk Music of the Southern West Virginia Coalfields
4:30 - 6:00 pM
Short Narratives & Animated Stories
6:30 - 8:00 pM
Ranging from gut busting humor and quirky anecdotes to dramas that draw attention to societal ills or tragic consequences, the short narratives and animated stories segment presents a range of compelling stories about the world around us.
HR & B • Ron Scott Jr.
Second Hand Ghouls • PJ Gaynard
Five Stars • Trinity Love Rollins
Pongo, Spike and Tyke • Meysam Shamsi
Going Home • Hunter Reardon, Peter Berinato
Vendetta • Dylan Anglin
Pandora's Greenhouse • Adrian Manuel Pijoan
St. Jude's Reply • David Golden
Service Bus • Elmer Mikael Lødemel
PAPA • Florias Welch Gallay
American Pizza: A 48 Hour Film Project • Will Radan
Awards Ceremony
8:30 pM
The festival presents modest cash awards in recognition of artistic merit and excellence. These include $100 awards in each of the major festival’s main genre categories, several student awards, an audience choice award, and a $300 best of show award. Awardees will be announced publicly during the award ceremony.
10:00 - 10:45 pM
Liminal Worlds
9:15 - 9:45 pM
Experimental Works
Since its inception in 2010, experimental works in video and animation have been the cornerstone of the West Virginia Mountaineer Short Film Festival. While experimental works are sprinkled throughout this year’s 4-day schedule, this segment features works that challenge boundaries - whether aesthetic, formal, technological or even ethical - head on.
Closure • Blake Riesenfeld
Match Dance • John Akre
Normal Litio • Massimiliano Marianni
Naya Sahasrabhuja Avalokiteshvara 新千手觀世音菩薩 • Shon Kim
Reading The Wound • Erich Barganier
The Story of The Cricket Queen • Natalie Peracchio
Tehran 615 • Hamidreza Nassiri
A Minor Color Study • Jeffrey Moser
CosmonautOpReMix • Timothy James Nohe
A selection of unique experimental works that will stretch the mind - as well as time and space - calling into question what it means to be alive, or to be conscious, to be in control of one’s surroundings, or to understand the unfolding of culture.
Mysterious Purple House • Joshua Yates
Policed Mind • Laury Hooghuis
Algorithmic Nudes Grapple with Entropy • David R Witzling
But...You're A Dolphin! • Sarah Turner
Je jouissante... moi non plus • Flâneuse du Mal
Voyeur • Maryam Hashempour
I Exist • Martin Del Carpio
Sunday, March 8
All Films will be Shown in The Bloch Learning & Performance Hall
1:30 - 2:15 pM
Young Filmmakers
This screening celebrates young filmmakers in high school. It features 10 young artists from the United States, Malaysia, and Australia honing their craft in filmmaking - in ways sometimes hard to distinguish from their professional peers!
Revolution • Xinti Lim
Revenge of the Killer Rubber Chickens • Tristan J Cook
35,567 Yup'ik Stories • Magnus Shipe
Mephisto • Abhigyan Ravichandran
empty nester • Alexandra Bennett
Fallen • Angela Ruohan Yan
The Red Thread • Peyton Rhian Fitz
Artist Q & A
3:00 - 4:00 pM
Defining Self & Purpose
This year's festival concludes with a final screening of six remarkable films which document the lives and stories of 6 equally remarkable individuals. Hailing from 5 different countries, including Germany, Indonesia, Egypt, Canada, Iran, and the United States, we see them evolving, growing, and negotiating challenges to find their right place, their right community, or a higher purpose in the world. A heartwarming and uplifting ending at a time when the world needs such stories more than ever.
(MOURNING) AFFIRMATIONS • Spyros Patsouras
Don't Cry For Me All You Drag Queens • Kristal Sotomayor
Gamelan Evolution • Juan Vito Timothy Reyner
a decade • Wrik Mead
Nabt Al-Ard • Mohammed Hamed Salama
Like Friend, Like Deer • Malek Eghbali
On Camera • Jackie Mishol
Artist Q & A
Established in 2010 by the Digital Art and Animation area of the West Virginia University School of Art and Design, WVMSFF has been a hub for international experimental and independent filmmaking in our region, bringing diverse cultural and artistic perspectives to West Virginia University and Appalachia.