TRYON – This weekend, Tryon will play host to more than 30 films, eight breakout sessions and international filmmakers from as far away as Nepal.

The second annual Tryon International Film Festival, organized by Kirk Gollwitzer and Beau Menetre from the Polk County Film Initiative, celebrates films as they search for distributors here in the United States.

An opening gala will take place at the Tryon Fine Arts Center on October 7 where the PBS documentary, “American Epic,” will be screened. According to Gollwitzer, this film has been executive produced by Robert Redford and presented by music producer T-Bone Burnett and singer Jack White.

“These two filmmakers produced this fabulous documentary that is narrated by Robert Redford and it’s about the beginnings of modern music recording on records,” Gollwitzer said. “The project has secured the enthusiastic participation of a superb roster of high profile artists. The music of the 1920s had a huge influence on bands like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones.”

According to Alan Peoples, mayor of Tryon, the film festival gives visitors a chance to see the Town of Tryon and the surrounding area.

“This ambitious undertaking, brought to us by the Polk County Film Initiative, is an opportunity to showcase our town and the surrounding area to our guests,” Peoples said. “The film initiative and festival sponsors have done a great job of assembling artists, films and venues for you.”

Menetre said he is excited because the festival is in its second year, which means he and Gollwitzer can be more serious about how it proceeds in terms of which films they pick to screen and the organization of the schedule.

“This year will definitely be better in terms of content and organization, and we’ve been working on making things more streamlined this year,” Menetre said. “Last year was a little bit chaotic because, I think with a first year event you have no real expectations about what the delivery is. This year, we kind of know what to expect from venues to the filmmakers all the way down to who we buy our merchandise from.”

Filmmakers from both here in the United States from more than 10 countries will convene on the international stage in Tryon. Nischal Poudyal, filmmaker from Nepal, will be hosting a world premiere screening of his film “Lama La” during the festival. Poudyal brought his film “Riingata” to Tryon during the first festival last year and it was selected as the Best International Film.

“Since my childhood, I always loved the idea and images. Film is the perfect combination of these two entities,” Poudyal explained. “I really, really love to be a part of film. I think I can say for me and everyone here with ‘Lama La’ that we are really excited to be coming back to Tryon. Since I was a kid, the real essence of Buddhism always attracted me. I enrolled in a Buddhist course in Kathmandu University in 2014 and this was a key inspiration for ‘Lama La’ and I started writing the script while I was learning the basics of Buddhism in a monastery.”

The festival will have a panel of six judges and each film has the chance to win in six categories including Best Comedy and Best International Film. This year adds a new category, the Best Human Rights Film, to the list thanks to human rights activist and founder of the Innocence in Danger child protection organization Homayra Sellier.

Breakout sessions, which allow people from every aspect of the filmmaking industry to come in and sit down in a Q&A setting, will also be integral to the two-day festival. Film producer and director Frank Calo will be on hand to talk about the technical, behind the scenes work in the industry in his “nuts and bolts” session.

“The breakout class is more of an overall production class from my experiences as a producer, live producer, assistant director, directing and writing and I want this to help in the real world, because I have people from 18 to 50 in my classes,” Calo explained. “It’s geared towards the reality of today’s world and it’s also geared towards people who are experienced and need some fine tuning with budgets, shooting schedules, contracts, writing or any aesthetics. It’s geared towards people who are beginning or people who are just as experienced as I am.”

According to Gollwitzer, the festival is a vehicle for filmmakers to get in touch with studios to get their films distributed in theaters. Gollwitzer and Menetre said they are interested in film from a business perspective to bring filmmakers to western North Carolina or the state.

“One thing to highlight is that we’ve had people wonder what a film festival is, even myself earlier on. This is a good opportunity to talk about what the Polk County Film Initiative is and it’s our objective overall to bring film production to western North Carolina or North Carolina,” Gollwitzer explained. “We’re interested in it as a company and as an art, but the film festival is a vehicle for independent filmmakers and these are people who are, basically, outside a major motion picture studio.

This is the course of action filmmakers do to get their stuff out there.”

For more information visit TryonInternationlFilm Festival.com.