The Maiden

Colton (Marcel T. Jiménez) and Kyle (Jackson Sluiter) are best friends. They happily roam their small town and its environs, killing time doing ordinary, stupid, teenager stuff: destroying an old TV, spraypainting graffiti under a train bridge, skateboarding down a bumpy dirt slope. But their goofing also reveals glimmers of tenderness, such as in the scene where they find a dead cat, place it on a tiny raft with a bouquet of wildflowers, and set it adrift downriver.

When a terrible accident takes Kyle away, Colton is overwhelmed. He revisits the places he went with Kyle, as though hoping to hear an echo of his friend's presence. People in the community try to reach out, but grief seems to have rendered Colton mute. Meanwhile, Colton's classmate Whitney (Hayley Ness) experiences her own deeply internalized emotional crisis, prompting her to set out into the woods in search of some kind of peace.