Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand, DEADPOOL’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) are just a couple of high-school BFFs trying to get more followers for their blog. Except their on-line project is devoted to a local murder spree, and they’ve just captured and imprisoned the perpetrator. How do they keep the slaughter spree going so they have more to report on? Well, they’re willing and able to improvise… Director/co-writer Tyler McIntyre delivers a spirited satire of teenage values in the Internet era, coupled with a gruesomely imaginative creative killfest. The leads are right on target as girls whose status obsession has a body count, and the supporting cast includes Craig Robinson (also one of the film’s producers) in a very funny turn.

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Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, Brian Gleeson, Kristin Wiig

A couple’s relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence. From filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream), Mother! stars Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer in this riveting psychological thriller about love, devotion and sacrifice.

Fierce, feminist pioneers of American grunge punk, the L7: Pretend We’re Dead documentary, directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Sarah Price (American Movie, The Yes Men, Summercamp), is a culmination of the band’s re-ignited enthusiasm fueled by their fans’ outpouring of encouragement and support on social media when the band hinted at the idea of a documentary in early 2015.

Culled from over 100 hours of unearthed vintage home movies taken by the band, never before seen performance footage, and candid interviews, L7: Pretend We’re Dead chronicles the band’s triumphs and failures. It takes viewers on an all access journey into the 1990’s grunge movement that took the world by storm. Charged with lyrics that had political bite and humor which proved irresistible to the disenfranchised, the marginalized, and the punk, they helped define grunge as the genre of a generation.

In 2007, 11 years after one of the most influential American punk bands, Jawbreaker, called it quits, the three members, Blake Schwarzenbach, Chris Bauermeister, and Adam Pfahler reconnect in a San Francisco recording studio to listen back to their albums, reminisce and even perform together one last time. Follow the band as they retell their “rags to riches to rags” story writhe with inner band turmoil, health issues, and the aftermath of signing to a major label. Featuring interviews with Billy Joe Armstrong, Steve Albini, Jessica Hopper, Graham Elliot, Chris Shifflet, Josh Caterer and more.

Starring: Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jared Gilman

The year is 1965, and the residents of New Penzance, an island off the coast of New England, inhabit a community that seems untouched by some of the bad things going on in the rest of the world. Twelve-year-olds Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) have fallen in love and decide to run away. But a violent storm is approaching the island, forcing a group of quirky adults (Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray) to mobilize a search party and find the youths before calamity strikes.

Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Joan Bennett, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé

The FOFIF presents a special Halloween screening of SUSPIRIA, emphasizing and celebrating Dario Nicolodi’s co-authorship. Screening before the feature is the short film NO OVERNIGHT PARKING by Meg Swertlow. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.

“Everything belongs to me in Suspiria.” – Daria Nicolodi

Suspiria is the classic fantasy-horror film directed by Dario Argento in which a young American ballerina goes to a dance school in Berlin only to discover it’s operated by a coven of witches. The story comes from Daria Nicolodi (Argento’s wife and actress) involving her grandmother and the collection of essays, Suspiria de prundis, by Thomas De Quincey; essential influences that both come directly from Nicolodi. The FOFIF presents this beloved film with the context of Nicolodi’s writing and creative labor context in mind.

Inspired by the essay “The Secret Beyond the Door” by Martha Shearer in “Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre.

NO OVERNIGHT PARKING
Directed by Meg Swertlow, 2022
10 min.
A woman fleeing her abusive husband gets trapped in an underground parking garage with a misogynistic, masked killer out for blood.

Starring: Ingrid Jungermann, Ann Carr, Shelia Vand, Shannon O’Neill, Annette O’Toole, Grace Rex, Deborah Rush, Rodrigo Lopresti, Tami Sagher.

Commitment phobic Morgan and her ex-girlfriend Jean are locally famous true crime podcasters obsessed with female serial killers. There’s a chance they may still have feelings for each other, but co-dependence takes a back seat when Morgan meets the mysterious Simone during her Food Coop shift. Blinded by infatuation, Morgan quickly signs up for the relationship, ignoring warnings from friends that her new love interest is practically a stranger.

When Jean shows Morgan proof that Simone may not be who she says she is, Morgan accuses Jean of trying to ruin the best thing that’s ever happened to her. But as she and Simone move into commitment territory, Morgan starts to notice red flags—maybe Jean was right and Simone isn’t as perfect as Morgan’s made her out to be.

Morgan and Jean investigate Simone as if she were a subject of their podcast, they uncover disturbing clues—a death at the Food Coop, a missing friend, a murder weapon—leading them to suspect her not only of mystery, but of murder. In the end, Morgan has to examine all the evidence in front of her: Is she just afraid of what it means to be in a relationship or is her life actually in danger?

Zaynab is a Pakistani, Muslim lawyer living in Chicago who begins a new romance with Alma, a vivacious Mexican-American woman. Zaynab’s recently widowed mother has moved in, spending her days watching Pakistani TV dramas while searching for a potential husband for her only daughter. Alma’s mother is a former professional Luchadora, which Zaynab finds fascinating as she’s recently taken up lucha-style wrestling. Zaynab tries to keep her love life from her mother, who knows more than she lets on.