Black and White Masquerade
Start with a black mask, a glass of champagne, and the flicker of a silent-film screen, and you’ll have the spirit of the Highlands-Cashiers Film Festival Society in one unforgettable evening.
This year’s Society experience leads with the Black and White Masquerade, a glamorous celebration built around the 100th anniversary of the silent classic Phantom of the Opera. Guests are invited to arrive in black-and-white attire, masks optional but very much encouraged, for a gourmet reception before the curtain rises.
Then comes the real magic: a live-scored screening featuring members of the Western Carolina University orchestra, followed by sweets and champagne.
It is cinema as occasion, music as atmosphere, and community as the star of the evening.
Horror Deconstructed | Clara Stack and Wesley Wofford
Scheduled for Saturday, September 19 at 6:00 P.M. at the PAC, the Masquerade is open to Society members and sponsors, making it one of the most distinctive invitations of the festival season.
It’s also a fitting doorway into what the Film Festival Society is all about: a closer, richer, more personal connection to the films, filmmakers, conversations, and creative pleasures that make the Highlands-Cashiers Film Festival feel so at home in the mountains.
For $750 per person or $1,500 per couple, Society membership offers a VIP way to experience the festival while helping support the work that makes it possible. Of that gift, $500 per person is tax deductible.
Members receive a full VIP festival pass, reserved seating for every screening, the special workshop Horror Deconstructed, exclusive entry to the Black & White Masquerade, and a personal welcome at the Festival kickoff with Joy Jorgensen. In other words, the Society membership turns a weekend at the movies into something more: relaxed, hospitable, festive, and easy to enjoy from the best seats in the house.
One Society event that goes beyond the screen, is the Horror Deconstructed Seminar, designed even for those who usually keep one eye closed during scary movies. The session takes audiences behind the scenes to explore how horror films are made, with insight from Cashiers sculptor and Academy Award-winner Wesley Wofford, whose special-effects work includes Hannibal, along with Clara Stack, the young actress featured in HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry. By the end, even reluctant horror fans may find themselves watching the genre with fresh curiosity.
That spirit of discovery is at the heart of the broader Highlands-Cashiers Film Festival, a four-day celebration of storytelling, creativity, and connection.
The festival brings together filmmakers, media artists, and audiences from around the world for an in-person experience filled with screenings, conversations, competition features, shorts programs, filmmaker talks, and special gatherings.
The 2026 festival is scheduled for September 16 through 19 at Highlands Performing Arts Center, with highlights including the Black and White Masquerade, competition films submitted from around the world, and programming that benefits the center.
But the Society’s appeal is not only in the calendar. It’s in the feeling of belonging to something local and lively, where conversations spill from the lobby to dinner tables, where a film can spark a question, a laugh, or a new friendship, and where support for the arts is wrapped in the fun of a very good night out. Society members help sustain an event that brings energy to Highlands and Cashiers, welcomes creative voices, and gives audiences a shared cultural experience in a setting already known for beauty and hospitality.
And then there’s the popcorn. The reserved seats. The badge. The sense that, for one weekend, you’re not simply attending the festival; you’re immersed in it.
The Black and White Masquerade may be the opening sparkle, but the Film Festival Society offers the whole reel: exclusive events, insider access, festival ease, and the deep satisfaction of supporting storytelling in the mountains. For film lovers, neighbors, visitors, and anyone who enjoys a little glamour with their community spirit, it’s an invitation worth accepting.
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