Filmmaker Spotlight
Dylan Miller
Pyre
Director: Dylan Miller
Country : USA
Runtime: 19:19
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Horror
Language: English
Completion Year: 2025
Links: Instagram
Synopsis
In a remote 17th-century village, a widowed mother accused of witchcraft is interrogated by a charming but ruthless inquisitor, forcing an impossible choice to save her daughter.
About the Director
Dylan Miller is an Atlanta-based writer, director, and producer whose work blends genre with emotional intimacy. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, he gravitates toward epic stories that balance spectacle with a strong emotional core on a cinematic scale. Across features and shorts, he aims to create experiences that stay with audiences, encouraging them to feel first and analyze later. He recently earned his MFA in Film from the University of Georgia, where he honed his craft as a filmmaker and storyteller. Pyre is the first film he has taken into the world beyond graduate school, and he is currently developing his debut feature film.
Director Statement
Pyre is a historical thriller and horror, but above all it is a story about love: a mother holding the line for her child as fear and fire close in. I made this because I love my mom. I also set myself the challenge to demonstrate strong writing and direction by crafting one sustained scene carried only by dialogue and performance, to see whether tension, character, and silence could drive the story to a true emotional break. That challenge became personal, and this is the film I most needed to make.
I wanted the audience to feel the pressure of proximity, how a room can become an instrument of control, how a glance or a pause can decide a life. The film unfolds in near real time as a dialogue-driven set piece contained largely within a 17th-century homestead that becomes an interrogation chamber. Within those walls, scripture, ritual, and silence become weapons, and a daughter watches as her mother endures a series of tests.
Performance drives everything. I framed and paced the film to stay close to the actors, letting small gestures carry the weight while the cinematography and sound design serve the actors first. The world stays intimate even as the threat grows.
Though rooted in history, Pyre speaks to now: how authority can weaponize truth, how systems steeped in moral certainty fail the vulnerable, and how small acts of resistance endure. Above all, it is about a mother’s love, and it is a crucible that tests power, faith, and the limits of love, and shows how even the smallest act of defiance can carry beyond the flames.