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THE BAR (EL BAR)[/caption]
Made in Spain, a showcase of Spanish films at the 2017
San Sebastian International Film Festival will feature eleven films, including the latest works from acclaimed directors such as Álex de la Iglesia, Agustí Villaronga and Paco Plaza.
Among the debuts are
Pieles, by Eduardo Casanova, which had its premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival;
Estiu 1993 / Summer 1993, by Carla Simón, winner of Best First Film at the
Berlinale and Gold Biznaga at the Malaga Festival, the first awards in a long list of accolades; Júlia ist, Silver Biznaga for Best Film and Best Directing at the Malaga Festival, the first film by Elena Martín, star of Las amigas de Ágata; No sé decir adios (Can’t Say Goodbye), by Lino Escalera, winner of four awards at the Malaga Festival, including Special Jury Prize; and La mano invisible (The Invisible Hand), first feature film by David Macián. The film, inspired in the novel of the same name by Isaac Rosa, premiered in Seville and was selected for the San Sebastian Human Rights Festival, among others.
Gabriel Velázquez participated in Zabaltegi in 2007 with Amateurs, with a screenplay penned by Blanca Torres. The two now present Análisis de sangre azul (Analysis of Blue Blood), selected for the Seville, Nantes, Barcelona and Toulouse festivals.
Demonios tus ojos (Sister of Mine), premiered at the Rotterdam Festival, is the third work from Pedro Aguilera. Both his debut, La influencia (The Influence), premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, and his second film, Naufragio (Wreckage), screened at San Sebastian.
Víctor García León, who competed in the Official Selection with Vete de mí (Silver Shell for Best Actor), will present Selfie, recipient of a Special Jury Mention and the Critics’ Award at Malaga.
Incerta glòria / Uncertain Glory is the latest film by Agustí Villaronga, who made his debut in San Sebastian with Tras el cristal (In a Glass Cage, Zabaltegi-New Directors, 1986) and has harvested two Best Actress Silver Shells at the Festival (with Pa negre /Black Bread and El rey de la Havana / The King of Havana).
El bar (The Bar), which premiered in Berlin, is the latest proposal from the filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia, who has participated in San Sebastian Festival’s Official Selection with several of his films, such as La comunidad (Common Wealth, Silver Shell for Carmen Maura), Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (Witching & Bitching) and Mi gran noche (
My Big Night).
Paco Plaza, co-creator of the film REC with Jaume Balagueró, will present his latest genre movie,
Verónica.
Made in Spain
ANÁLISIS DE SANGRE AZUL (ANALYSIS OF BLUE BLOOD)
BLANCA TORRES, GABRIEL VELÁZQUEZ (SPAIN)
Cast: Anders Lindstrom
Análisis de sangre azul narrates the adventures of a British aristocrat who suffered a fall in the Pyrenees only to come round in a mental asylum early last century. The doctor in psychiatry Pedro Martínez records with his 16mm camera the progress of this man suffering from disorientation and memory loss. However, the doctor’s hidden intentions will drive him to take advantage of this “rare specimen’s” arrival to test his theories of evolution.
DEMONIOS TUS OJOS (SISTER OF MINE)
PEDRO AGUILERA (SPAIN – COLOMBIA)
Cast: Julio Perillán, Ivana Baquero, Lucía Guerrero, Nicolás Coronado, Elisabet Gelabert, Juan Pablo Shuk
One night, Oliver, a young film director living in Los Angeles, discovers on an erotic website that one of the stars of the explicit videos is his younger sister, Aurora. Surprised and bewildered, he decides to go to Madrid; it’s been years since he saw his family. Thus begins an obsessive search for answers, an intimate journey towards confusion and the truth of the image, a tale of domination and manipulation, of moral limits and the loss of vital and audiovisual innocence.
EL BAR (THE BAR)
ÁLEX DE LA IGLESIA (SPAIN – ARGENTINA)
Cast: Blanca Suárez, Mario Casas, Carmen Machi, Secun de la Rosa, Jaime Ordóñez, Terele Pávez, Joaquín Climent, Alejandro Awada
Nine in the morning. A motley crew are having breakfast in a bar in the centre of Madrid. One of them is in a hurry; on his way out the door he’s shot in the head. No-one dares to help him. They’re trapped.
ESTIU 1993 / SUMMER 1993
CARLA SIMÓN (SPAIN)
Cast: Laia Artigas, Paula Robles, Bruna Cusí, David Verdaguer
In summer 1993 and following the death of her parents, 6 year-old Frida is taken from Barcelona to the Catalonian countryside. She lives with her aunt and uncle, her new legal guardians. Life in the country is a challenge for her – time passes differently in her new home and the surrounding nature is mysterious and distant. Now she has a younger sister to look after. She also has to deal with new feelings, like jealousy. The family works hard to achieve a fragile balance and bring normality to their lives. Occasionally they listen to jazz in the garden, go on family outings to a fiesta or to the swimming pool. These are happy times. Slowly, Frida starts realising she’s there to stay and must adapt to her new environment. Before summer ends, Frida will have to face up to herself.
INCERTA GLÒRIA / UNCERTAIN GLORY
AGUSTÍ VILLARONGA (SPAIN)
Cast: Oriol Pla, Terele Pávez, Luisa Gavasa, Juan Diego, Marcel Borras, Núria Prims, Bruna Cusi
The Aragon Front, 1937. Lluís, a young Republican officer sent to a temporarily inactive post, meets and falls for Carlana, an enigmatic widow. The girl convinces him to forge a document giving her the title of Lady of the region. Lluís’s best friend, Solèras, a demoted officer, discovers the fraud and, in exchange for keeping quiet about it, demands that he moves away from the Barcelona bombardments Trini, Lluís’s wife, with whom he is secretly in love, and her son. When Trini comes to the village, it won’t be long before she discovers Lluís’s betrayals as a ‘state of war’ settles in between the two, shaking all of their moral foundations.
JÚLIA IST
ELENA MARTÍN GIMENO (SPAIN)
Cast: Elena Martín, Oriol Puig, Jakob D’Aprile, Laura Weissmahr, Carla Linares
Júlia decides to go on Erasmus to Berlin. She will leave home for the first time, giving it little thought, launching herself into adventure. The city, cold and grey, will give her a frostier welcome than expected and she will face her expectations with reality: her existence will seem far removed from the new life she had dreamt of in the lecture rooms of Barcelona School of Architecture.
LA MANO INVISIBLE (THE INVISIBLE HAND)
DAVID MACIÁN (SPAIN)
Cast: Josean Bengoetxea, Bárbara Santa-Cruz, Marta Larralde, Luis Callejo, José Luis Torrijo, Marina Salas, Daniel Pérez Prada, Edu Ferrés, Esther Ortega, Elisabet Gelabert, Bruto Pomeroy
In an industrial building, eleven people are hired to go about their work in front of an audience: a bricklayer, a butcher, a seamstress, a telephone operator, a waiter, a message boy, a mechanic, a computer specialist and a cleaner. Artwork, reality show, macabre experiment: they don’t know what’s in store for them, or who is behind the hand that moves the strings of this perverse little puppet theatre.
NO SÉ DECIR ADIÓS (CAN´T SAY GOODBYE)
LINO ESCALERA (SPAIN)
Cast: Nathalie Poza, Juan Diego, Lola Dueñas
Carla gets a call from her sister: her father, with whom she fell out some time ago, is ill. That same day, Carla takes a flight to Almeria, to the home of her childhood. There, the doctors say that her father has only months to live. She refuses to accept the diagnosis and, against everyone’s opinion, decides to take him to Barcelona for treatment. The two embark on a journey to escape from a reality that neither dares to confront. And it will be in this flight that they will finally find one another and have the opportunity to say their goodbyes.
PIELES (SKINS)
EDUARDO CASANOVA (SPAIN)
Cast: Macarena Gómez, Jon Kortajarena, Candela Peña, Carmen Machi, Ana Polvorosa, Secun de la Rosa, Joaquín Climent
Physical appearance conditions us in regard to society, whether or not it is our choice. Pieles is the tale of physically diverse people whose differences have forced them to hide, shut themselves away or group together. Samantha, a woman with an inverted digestive system, Laura, a girl with no eyes, or Ana, a woman with a deformed face. Lonely people who struggle to find their place in a society that only understands one kind of physical appearance, and which excludes and mistreats those who don’t fit in.
SELFIE
VÍCTOR GARCÍA LEÓN (SPAIN)
Cast: Santiago Alverú, Macarena Sanz, Javier Carramiñana, Pepe Ocio, Alicia Rubio, Clara Alvarado
A government minister has just been arrested by the police, accused of corruption, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering and another eighteen money-related crimes. This is the tale of his son. The adventures of Bosco from the moment he is thrown out of his luxurious chalet in Moraleja until he approaches the Podemos HQ to ask for a job; his sentimental torment after his girlfriend of perfect teeth and lazy lip leaves him, until he is accepted by a blind social worker, educator in a school for the disabled; his miseries from the moment he is expelled from his exclusive Master in Directing until his fearful wanderings around the streets of the Lavapiés district. If this was a romantic comedy, Bosco would learn a lesson; life would teach him something… and finally there would be a ray of light, the hope of change. He would find the love of his life. Or perhaps renew his faith in humans. Or simply a new path… or some kind of love for animals. Something. Unfortunately, this is not a romantic comedy.
VERÓNICA
PACO PLAZA (SPAIN)
Cast: Sandra Escacena, Bruna González, Claudia Placer, Iván Chavero, Consuelo Trujillo, Ana Torrent
Madrid, the 90s. In the middle of the night, the police receive a call. Amid screams of terror, they hear children shouting out about the presence of strange phenomena in their flat, deep in a working-class district. Two days earlier, Verónica, their older sister, had used the Ouija board at school. Without realising it, she has just opened the door to something supernatural, inexplicable, which will move into her house over the next hours, becoming increasingly more incontrollable and, above all, very, very dangerous.
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HOUSEWIFE[/caption]
The 2017 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival returns to New York City October 12th till the 15th, announced the first wave of the line-up, which boasts exciting films, dynamic events and more venues, expanding the festival’s activities.
“This year we’ve grown to a four-day festival and are very excited to be extending our reach to audiences beyond North Brooklyn, into Downtown Brooklyn and Crown Heights,” says fest director Justin Timms. “Starting with our opening night at the new Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Brooklyn we’ve also added Nitehawk Cinema, LIU Kumble Theater, Film Noir Cinema & Video Revival this year to go along with our key theaters from last year Wythe Hotel Cinema, Videology Bar & Cinema and Spectacle Theater.”
Opening the festival is the North American Premiere of HOUSEWIFE, the newest film from director Can Evrenol who showed immense promise with his brutal 2015 breakthrough BASKIN. HOUSEWIFE tells the tale of a woman – haunted by a horrific childhood incident – who struggles with separating her nightmares from reality after she meets a charismatic psychic with a secret agenda.
This year BHFF will present the inaugural FEAR IN FOCUS program! Fear in Focus shines a spotlight on various themes or ideas that are important today. With the current political and global climate, the festival is “beyond excited” to launch this with the Mexican horror program.
FEAR IN FOCUS: MEXICO will showcase the hotly anticipated North American Premiere of horror anthology follow-up MEXICO BARBARO 2. Segment director Sergio Tello will be in attendance.
Also in the block is the US Premiere of VERONICA, the erotically charged mystery with echoes of early Polanski by directors Carlos Algara & Alejandro Martinez Beltran in which a twisted battle for psychological dominance ensues between a retired psychologist and her patient whom she treats in her isolated home in the woods.
Not to be missed is the East Coast Premiere of Victor Dryere’s genuinely unnerving found footage film 1974 which reveals the bizarre and terrifying fate of a missing young couple through a collection of 8 mm tapes and home movies. A much-needed shot in the arm for a tired horror style, Dryere’s film deserves mention alongside found-footage gems like [REC] and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.
BHFF also announced an additional five competition features, starting with Tyler MacIntyre’s highly acclaimed TRAGEDY GIRLS.
Status obsession has a body count when BFFs Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand, DEADPOOL’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp, X-MEN APOCALYPSE’s Storm) capture a serial murderer whose exploits they’ve been chronicling on their blog. How do they keep the slaughter spree going so they have more to report on? The answers are both giggly and grisly in a film also featuring a fun supporting turn by comedy big-timer (and producer) Craig Robinson.
Festival fans may remember Graham Skipper, star of last year’s Audience Award Winning BEYOND THE GATES, who now returns to BHFF to share his directorial debut, SEQUENCE BREAK, a surreal, absorbing homage to the body-horror cinema and video games of the ’80s. Chase Williamson plays an arcade-game repairman who finds love with a customer (Fabianne Therese) and terror from a mysterious game with a lot more powering it than pixels. Director Graham Skipper will be in attendance for the screening.
Surrounded by heightened paranoia and superstition, an evil presence threatens a mother and her infant child in the Alps of 15th century Austria in HAGAZUSSA – A HEATHEN’S CURSE. Is this ancient malevolence an outside force or a product of her psychosis? With stunningly gorgeous photography and atmosphere for days, Lukas Fiegelfeld’s gothic horror fever dream illustrates the dangers associated with dark beliefs and the infestation of fear.
A young woman traumatized by a savage attack from her husband begins to hear voices in her apartment. CLEMENTINA, Jimena Monteoliva’s solo directorial debut expertly builds tension, maintaining a sense of unease from the start that creeps higher until the frightening and suffocating shocker of a third act. Cecilia Cartasegna delivers with a classically terrifying portrait of a woman on the edge. Lead actress Cecilia Cartasegna and screenwriter Diego Fleischer will be in attendance for the screening.
Take a stroll into despair with the East Coast Premiere of José Pedro Lopes THE FOREST OF LOST SOULS, as two suicidal strangers explore the dark woods together, looking for the best spot to commit suicide all the while debating, what’s the best way to kill yourself? It soon becomes clear that one person isn’t who they say they are. This Portuguese black-and-white-shot nightmare is a unique and disturbing modern take on the slasher film.
To start off the 2017 STAGE FRIGHTS program the festival announced two of this year’s live events where the panels of experts will be dissecting fear with sharp wit, whether they’re intoxicated or not.
Even the best slasher villain has a better half — a final girl. Final girls are a crucial part of the horror ecosystem, but which one is the best? Which is the funniest? And which has the most questionable taste in weapons? Come hear horror experts make the case for everyone from Jamie Lee Curtis in HALLOWEEN to Neve Campbell in SCREAM to Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN.
Participants: Aja Romano (Vox), Kristen Kim (GQ/Village Voice/Vice), Hazel Cills (Jezebel), and Teo Bugbee (Daily Beast).
Hosted by Eric Thurm (The Guardian/GQ/The A.V. Club), Drunk Education (the show formerly known as Drunk TED Talks) is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: writers/comics/artists make slideshows about stuff they’re really into, get drunk, and deliver them. Whether it’s the horniness of St. Augustine, the history of mansplaining relayed through the plot of Love Actually, or the way teen girl organizers could have prevented the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Drunk Ed has you covered.
To celebrate the release of Canadian micro-publisher Spectacular Optical’s new book about French fantastique filmmaker Jean Rollin, the book’s curator and editor Samm Deighan will be on hand to introduce a special screening of Rollin’s 1971 LE FRISSON DES VAMPIRES, recently restored in HD by Kino Lorber.
LOST GIRLS is the first book about the director to be written entirely by women critics, scholars, and film historians. This collection of essays covers the wide range of Rollin’s career from 1968’s LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE through his 2010 swansong, LE MASQUE DE LA MÉDUSE, touching upon his horror, fantasy, crime and sex films—including many lesser seen titles. Before the film, Samm will give a brief introduction examining Rollin’s core themes: his focus on overwhelmingly female protagonists, his use of horror genre and exploitation tropes, his reinterpretations of the fairy tale and fantastique, the influence of crime serials, Gothic literature, the occult and more.
HOUSEWIFE (NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE)
Turkey / Dir. Can Evrenol
Sponsored by Birth.Movies.Death
Haunted by the bloodstained memories of a horrific childhood incident, Holly’s struggles with separating her nightmares from reality derail after she meets charismatic psychic with a secret agenda. Capitalizing on the immense promise shown by his brutal 2015 breakthrough BASKIN, writer-director Can Evrenol solidifies himself as horror’s future with this hypnotic and gruesome ode to Bava-esque Italian horror.
1974 (EAST COAST PREMIERE)
Mexico / Dir. Victor Dryere
Sponsored by El Buho Mezcal
Shortly after getting married in 1974, the young couple Altair and Manuel disappeared without a trace in Mexico. Through a collection of 8 mm tapes and home movies, the newlyweds’ fates are revealed in all of their bizarre and terrifying glory. A much-needed shot in the arm for a tired horror style, Mexican filmmaker Victor Dryere’s genuinely unnerving 1974 deserves mention alongside found-footage gems like [REC] and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.
MEXICO BARBARO II (NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE)
Mexico / Dir. Lex Ortega, Sergio Tello, Diego Cohen, Fernando Urdapilleta, Michel Garza, Carlos Melendez, Ricardo Farías, Christian Cueva, Abraham Sanchez
Sponsored by El Buho Mezcal
In 2014, the truly demented Mexican filmmaker Lex Ortega assembled his country’s best horror filmmakers for the shocking anthology MEXICO BARBARO. But if you thought that film was gnarly, wait until you get a load of this crazier and wonderfully unhinged follow-up, helmed by an all-new lineup of on-the-rise Mexican horror voices and touching on cannibalism, porn, and historical demons.
VERONICA (US PREMIERE)
Mexico / Dir. Carlos Algara & Alejandro Martinez Beltran
Sponsored by El Buho Mezcal
A retired psychologist agrees to take on one more patient under the condition that the young lady move into her isolated home in the woods. A game of secrets and lies ensues as the two women battle for psychological dominance. Mexican co-directors Carlos Algara and Alejandro Martinez-Beltran’s feature debut is an erotically charged mystery with echoes of early Polanski.
CLEMENTINA (NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE)
Argentina / Dir. Jimena Monteoliva
A young woman traumatized by a savage attack from her husband begins to hear voices in her apartment. Jimena Monteoliva’s solo directorial debut expertly builds tension, maintaining a sense of unease from the start that creeps higher until the frightening and suffocating shocker of a third act. Cecilia Cartasegna delivers with a classically terrifying portrait of a woman on the edge.
THE FOREST OF LOST SOULS (EAST COAST PREMIERE)
Portugal / Dir. José Pedro Lopes
Two suicidal strangers explore the Forest of Lost Souls together, looking for the best spot to commit suicide all the while debating, what’s the best way to kill yourself? It soon becomes clear that one person isn’t who they say they are. This black-and-white-shot nightmare is a unique and disturbing modern take on the slasher film.
HAGAZUSSA – A HEATHEN’S CURSE (EAST COAST PREMIERE)
Germany / Dir. Lukas Fiegelfeld
Surrounded by heightened paranoia and superstition, an evil presence threatens a mother and her infant child in the Alps of 15th century Austria. But is this ancient malevolence an outside force or a product of her psychosis? With stunningly gorgeous photography and atmosphere for days, Lukas Fiegelfeld’s gothic horror fever dream illustrates the dangers associated with dark beliefs and the infestation of fear.
SEQUENCE BREAK (NY PREMIERE)
USA / Dir. Graham Skipper
Sponsored by Brooklyn Fireproof Stages
Busy genre actor Graham Skipper (RE-ANIMATOR: THE MUSICAL, BEYOND THE GATES, THE MIND’S EYE) makes his feature writing/directing debut with a surreal, absorbing homage to the body-horror cinema and video games of the ’80s. Chase Williamson plays an arcade-game repairman who finds love with a customer (Fabienne Theresa) and terror from a mysterious game with a lot more powering it than pixels.
TRAGEDY GIRLS (NY PREMIERE)
USA / Dir. Tyler Macintyre
Co-Presented by Nitehawk Cinema
Status obsession has a body count when BFFs Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand, DEADPOOL’s Negasonic Teenage Warhead) and McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) capture a serial murderer whose exploits they’ve been chronicling on their blog. How do they keep the slaughter spree going so they have more to report on? The answers are both giggly and grisly in a film also featuring a fun supporting turn by Craig Robinson (also a producer).
THE SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1971)
France / Dir. Jean Rollin
In conjunction with the launch of Spectacular Optical’s LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN, book editor Samm Deighan will host a special screening of Rollin’s SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES. Originally released in 1971, the French auteur’s psycho-sexual masterwork demonstrates all of Rollin’s cinematic touchstones: erotic scares, drop-dead-gorgeous bloodsuckers, and ornately shot kink. It’ll turn you into a Rollin disciple if you aren’t one already.