Starring: Natalia Solián, Alfonso Dosal, Mayra Batalla, Mercedes Hernández, Aída López, Martha Claudia Moreno
The Future of Film is Female and Bloodletter Magazine present HUESERA and short film LADY PARTS. Introduced by Bloodletter Magazine founder and LADY PARTS director Ariel McCleese. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
Writer/Director Michelle Garza Cervera uniquely explores the complexities of first-time motherhood in her darkly affective debut feature, Huesera. Imbuing a sense of fear and loss of self that is inherent to becoming a parent, the film uses the supernatural curse of “La Huesera” to heighten Valeria (Natalia Solián) sense of anxiety. Valeria’s joy at becoming pregnant with her first child is quickly taken away when she’s cursed by a sinister entity. As danger closes in and relationships with her family become fractured, she’s forced deeper into a chilling world of dark magic that threatens to consume her. A group of witches emerge that could be her only hope for safety and salvation, but not without grave risk.
LADY PARTS
Ariel McCleese / 15 min / 2023
When Iris thinks of Ellie, she gets wet. Very wet. She’s heard it’s normal, but this seems different. And when you’re in high school, different is dangerous.
Bloodletter is a feminist horror magazine showcasing personal and analytic perspectives on the horrific by women, trans, and non-binary writers. Celebrating marginalized voices and empowering emerging writers, Bloodletter is furthermore a community, bonded by the alchemic capacity of storytelling to transform horror into liberation. Issue Four: Lore launches on March 18th at bloodlettermag.com, featuring an interview with HUESERA director Michelle Garza Cervera.
Starring: Christopher Hoskins, Paul Richichi, Joe Zaso, George Reis, Larry Koster, Arlene Burns, Salvatore Finkel
“A throwback to crude, white trash drive-in classics.” – Shock Cinema
A deranged carnival barker unleashes his pet gorilla to wreak havoc on his enemies in a small Long Island town. When the ape embarks on a sex-fueled rampage of murder and dismemberment, a racist local detective sets his sights on an innocent drifter.
From outsider indie auteur and legendary horror zine publisher Keith J. Crocker comes this Super 8-shot, lurid love letter to both the grindhouse era and Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue. The Bloody Ape spares no souls and pulls no punches in its depiction of the depraved, morally bankrupt suburbs of a bygone New York City, where sleaze and grime coursed through its veins.
Starring: Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, Dennis Hopper
After the melting of the polar ice caps, most of the globe is underwater. Some humans have survived, and even fewer still, notably the Mariner (Kevin Costner), have adapted to the ocean by developing gills. A loner by nature, the Mariner reluctantly befriends Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and her young companion, Enola (Tina Majorino), as they escape from a hostile artificial island. Soon the sinister Smokers are pursuing them in the belief that Enola holds the key to finding the mythical Dryland.
Starring: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar, Lou Hancock
Musician Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) sits down at a Los Angeles diner, where he instantly takes an interest in waitress Julie Peters (Mare Winningham). The feeling is mutual, too, so the pair arranges a date for later that day. But things go awry when Harry picks up a random pay phone call from a frantic soldier who warns of a nuclear attack that will hit L.A. within the hour. Scrambling, Harry finds Julie and the two do everything they can to escape to safety.
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Lionel Atwill, Edward Everett Horton, Alison Skipworth, Cesar Romero
An older man (Lionel Atwill) warns a younger man (Cesar Romero) about a temptress (Marlene Dietrich) in 19th-century Spain.
Starring: James Cromwell, Magda Szubanski, Christine Cavanaugh, Miriam Margolyes, Danny Mann, Hugo Weaving
Gentle farmer Arthur Hoggett (James Cromwell) wins a piglet named Babe (Christine Cavanaugh) at a county fair. Narrowly escaping his fate as Christmas dinner when Farmer Hoggett decides to show him at the next fair, Babe bonds with motherly border collie Fly (Miriam Margolyes) and discovers that he too can herd sheep. But will the other farm animals, including Fly’s jealous husband Rex, accept a pig who doesn’t conform to the farm’s social hierarchy?
Starring: Masako Ikeda, Masako Nozawa, Kaneta Kimotsuki, Yōko Asagami, Miyoko Asō, Banjō Ginga
A boy travels through space on an intergalactic quest to find the villain who killed his mother.
Featuring the Anime After Dark Raffle, one lucky guest will win a pair of Friday passes to AnimeNYC 2025
Starring: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Odette Talazac
Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances. The film has had a tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the premiere audience in 1939, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn’t reconstructed until 1959.
Starring: Silvero Pereira, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen, Sônia Braga, Karine Teles, Thomas Aquino, Julia Marie Peterson, Antonio Saboia
A few years from now… Bacurau, a small village in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their village has literally vanished from online maps and a UFO-shaped drone is seen flying overhead. There are forces that want to expel them from their homes, and soon, in a genre-bending twist, a band of armed mercenaries arrive in town picking off the inhabitants one by one. A fierce confrontation takes place when the townspeople turn the tables on the villainous outsiders, banding together by any means necessary to protect and maintain their remote community. The mercenaries just may have met their match in the fed-up, resourceful denizens of little Bacurau.
