The third edition of Wench Film Festival, India’s first horror film festival showcasing films inclusive of BIWOC, LGBTQ+ women, and Non-Binary filmmakers will be held physically for the first time in addition to virtual screenings. Founded by celeb hairstylist turned filmmaker Sapna Bhavnani, the festival will open with the Award-winning Mexican film Huesera: The Bone Woman, directed by Michelle Garza Cerver and close with The Nightmare, directed by Alice Wadding. The festival will screen 23 Indian and International films in competition including Aarti Kadav’s sci-fi feature, The Astronaut and His Parrot starring Ali Fazal and Megha Ramaswami’s acclaimed short Lalanna’s Song starring Parvathy Thiruvothu and Rima Kallingal, apart from a special screening of the award-winning cult horror film, Tumbbad, a bunch of exciting talks and panel discussions with Vishal Furia (Chhori, Lapachhapi), Vikram Bhatt (Ghost, 1920, Creature), Anvita Dutt (Qala, Bulbbul), Gauri Shinde, Kaizad Gustad. The 3rd edition of Wench Film Festival, India’s first Horror Film Festival showcasing films inclusive of BIWOC, LGBTQ+ women, and Non-Binary filmmakers, founded by celebrity hairstylist turned filmmaker Sapna Bhavnani will be held physically for the first time in addition to virtual screenings.
Award-winning Mexican film Huesera: The Bone Woman, directed by Michelle Garza Cerver will be the Opening Film and The Nightmare, directed by Alice Wadding will be the Closing film of the festival. Other highlights include a special screening of Tumbbad along with panel discussions and music performances.
The physical screenings will take place from March 17-20 at Harkat Studio and Veda Factory while the virtual screenings will be held from 10 – 20 March 2023 and the tickets are available at Wench Film Festival
The festival will screen 23 films in the competition out of which 19 will be available to watch online at wenchff.festivalsaints.com
The films will be shown under three different categories, Blood Thirsty (More than 40 mins) Dwarves (10 to 40 mins), and Elves (Less than 10 mins).
The jury judging the three different categories will comprise Annick Mahnert and Shari Frillot (Blood Thirsty), Alexandre Heller-Nicholas (Dwarves) and Namrata Joshi (Elves)
Sapna Bhavnani, Founder of the Wench Film Festival says, “In the process of writing my new film Bearlike Man, I realised a palpable lack of female representation in the genre outfit of India. Over the three decades I looked at, 9.9% of directors were women. Horror comes with just 5.9% of directors being women and Sci-fi 2.8%. I find this statistic offensive. When I found out I was the first Indian woman director to pitch at BIFAN I knew I had to change gears and move the female gaze to the genre space that has eluded it for a long time.
She added, “The goal of the Wench FIlm Festival is to highlight women but also to promote and celebrate the genre space that has been in our blood since birth. India is a country of many religions and each has their own superstitions and rituals and we are amazed that we don’t have a festival yet. We are happy to start the conversation and like all things that start first, building the foundation is of utmost importance as well as collaborating with people who have been instrumental in building the genre space. I met Vivek at Film Bazaar last year and he said he also was looking to start a horror festival – and bam here we are. He took my vision and scaled it. We have no doubt of the success of the festival and already have big plans for our halloween bash. When I hear Indians saying they do not like horror I laugh as we are the land of spirituality which starts with spirit. “
Vivek Ranghachari, Development head of the festival says, “I feel that genre cinema has been vilified and is not given the due that it deserves in our country. Worldwide, it is the most successful brand of cinema that has worked over the years with a dedicated audience. We feel that there is a dedicated audience in our country that is looking for quality cinema in this space, and we want to provide that to them through the Wench Film Festival. Through showcasing the best in the world, we want to lay the foundation for future Film-makers and technicians to embrace and make films in this genre.”
With a selection of fantastical and off-beat movies, the festival is trying to bring the female perspective to the centre stage. The films will be shown under three different categories, Blood Thirsty (More than 40 mins) Dwarves (10 to 40 mins), and Elves (Less than 10 mins).
Below is the lineup:
BLOOD THIRSTY – More than 40 mins | 4 FILMS
⁃ Huesera: The Bone Woman (WINNER) – MUMBAI PREMIERE
Virtual screening is not available
Highlights:
Won Feature Film Competition Award at Morelia International Film Festival 2022
Blood Window Award & Citizen Kane Award for Best Directorial Revelation at Sitges – Catalonian International Film Festival 2022,
Prize of the City of Torino at Torino Film Festival 2022
Best New Narrative Director at Tribeca Film Festival 2022
Synopsis
Valeria has long dreamed about becoming a mother. After learning that she’s pregnant, she expects to feel happy, yet something’s off.
Language: Spanish
Director: Michelle Garza Cerver
Duration: 53min
THE NIGHTMARE – INDIA PREMIERE
Virtual screening is not available
Synopsis
(SHORT) In the early 19th century, the paranoia created by the death of three women in
a village triggers hatred towards a mysterious stranger.1880 in a village in mountainous Galicia: A series of mysterious deaths plague the region. All the victims are young women, and killed in strange circumstances. And the villagersbegin to suspect that the culprit is Naim, a strange neighbour who lives apart… without ever going out during the day. But Lúa, a young village girl who sees through their prejudices, will do everything she can to protect their most hidden secrets.
Language: Spanish
Direction: Alice Waddington
Duration: 52 Mins
RUPTURE – ASIA PREMIERE – MALE DIRECTOR
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/rupture
Highlights
The film was nominated for the Best First Time Filmmaker at, Montreal Independent Film Festival 2022
Synopsis
Mrs. Pospisil refuses to go to a nursing home despite her 80 years. But one day she discovers a crack in the wall of her old apartment, from which something sinister seems to spread quickly. But she doesn’t even want to be impressed by that. So she declares war on the crack – if it’s the last
thing she has to do …
Language: German
Director: Paul Ertl
Duration: 53min
HONEYCOMB – INDIA PREMIERE
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/honeycomb
Highlights
Nominated for the Best Narrative Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival 2022
Synopsis
Five small-town girls abandon their mundane lives and move into an abandoned cabin. Growing increasingly isolated, their world becomes filled with imagined rituals and rules but the events of one summer night threatehuen to abruptly end their age of innocence forever.
Language: English
Director: Avalon Fast
Duration: 1hr 10min
ELVES – 10mins | 7 FILMS
KAALIRAATHRI (INDIAN FILM – LIVE QNA – MALE DIRECTOR)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/kaaliraathri
Synopsis
A mother and a son, who share a murky past, enter into an argument on the night of the Bharani festival. The mother suspects the woman in her married son’s bedroom to be a whore. The son doubts the mother’s sanity. The woman, Kaali, is mute. Gradually, the real, the imagined, the surreal and the mythical combine to create an atmosphere of horror. The horror is patriarchy.
Language: Malayalam
Director: Bishwas Balan
Duration: 7min
⁃ Knit One, Stab Two (WINNER)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/knit-one-stab-two
Highlights
The film was screened at Kill Valentine Film Festival and Final Girls Berlin Film Festival
It will also be screened at the upcoming Renegade Film Festival 2023
Synopsis
In this film, I ask, what happens when the woman knits in a horror film? What might the representation of knitting tell us about social and cultural expectations around gender, genre and age? I then draw on the potential for videographic work to disrupt stereotyped representations of aging women across over a century of horror cinema.
Language: English
Director: Alison Peirse
Duration: 9min
⁃ Wolf Whistle
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/wolf-whistle
Synopsis
A young woman goes for a run. Once the sunsets, she finds herself vulnerable and alone in the park, but all is not what it seems.
Language: English
Director: Jennifer Handorf
Duration: 5min
⁃ Hexatic Phase
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/hexatic-phase
Synopsis
When a sexual encounter becomes assaultive, Violet notices her tattoo dripping into the bedsheets. The next morning, she discovers a slick of clear viscous mucus in the crook of her arm. In an attempt to process the assault and the strange deterioration of her body, Violet calls her mother, only to have the validity of her story called into question. The erasure of her agency redoubled, Violet’s surroundings drip and pool around her. Her body violated and her truth negated, Violet melts away.
Language: English
Director: Ariel McCleese
Duration: 6min
⁃ Sucker (INDIA PREMIERE)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/sucker
Highlights
The film was officially selected at ScreamFest Horror Film Festival 2022 and FrightFest, The dark heart of cinema, London 2022
Synopsis
Sam discovers her sister Caitlin has been infested by a monstrous, gigantic leech creature, that is slowly sucking her life force dry. Caitlin is reluctant to accept help and the sisters quarrel over how to deal with the parasite. Meanwhile, Sam struggles against the creature’s hostile, telepathic takeover, only to find that she herself has become a host…
Language: English
Director: Alix Austin
Duration: 8min
FURIA (INDIA PREMIERE)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/furia
Synopsis
The film deals with the problem of growing anger, frustration and aggression that seeks an outlet. The
heroine of the film is a person who loses control of her anger. Losing herself in emotions, she cannot stand the tension. The animation shows suppressed anger and imaginary physical violence. It refers to commonly formulated thoughts or intentions: my blood is flooding… my nerves are choking, I will tear him to shreds …. I am about to kill someone …. etc.
Language: No Dialogues
Director: Julia Siuda
Duration: 5min
IT TAKES A VILLAGE (LGBTQ+) (ASIA PREMIERE)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/it-takes-a-village
Synopsis
This short was written by Glamhag and Sarah Squirm (NBC’s SNL) and is an action packed short inspired by Rosemary’s Baby. Made in Chicago.
Language: English
Director: Glamhag
Duration: 7min
DWARVES 10- 40 mins | 12 FILMS
⁃ THE SOFTBOY
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/the-softboy
Synopsis
The Softboy is an creepypasta audiovisual that narrates the encounter with the Softboy, a soft and gentle being. The non- spectral, non-monstrous, but terrifying figure of the Softboy serves as an archetype to unravel soft masculinity and its role in the sophistication of gender violence.(Project funded by Ayudas Injuve 2021)
Language: English, Spanish
Director: Laura Tabarés
Duration: 16min
AALO / The Light (INDIAN FILM – MALE DIRECTOR)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/aalo-the-light
Synopsis
MOTHER and DAUGHTER are left alone in the house to navigate the grief of SON’s unnatural disappearance. As they slowly start descending into delirium, DAUGHTER tries to emulate behavioural traits of he brother, where as MOTHER starts talking to the LIGHT. It becomes DAUGHTER’s responsibility to stop mother from meeting the same fate as SON while dealing with her sorrows.
Language: Bengali
Director: Soham Kundu
Duration: 23min
⁃ Violet Daze
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/violet-daze
Highlights
Winner – Best Horror Film Audience Award, Cannes Short Film Festival 2022
Finalist – Continue Short Film Initiative
Quarter Finalist – ScreenCraft Horror Concept Contest
Awarded – ScreenCanberra Production Funding
Synopsis
Violet and Daisy have been best friends since they were five. Total besties. BFFs. Joined at the hip. How close can two best friends get? What would they do if anyone tried to
separate them?
Language: English
Director: Clare Langsford, Marisa Martin
Duration: 15min
⁃ Three Ways to Dine Well
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/three-ways-to-dine-well
Synopsis
I had three aims for this film. First, I wanted the audience to discover that women worked in major roles on such horror classics as The Shining, The Evil Dead and Rosemary’s Baby. Second, I wanted to illuminate little known horror films helmed by women, such as Nettie Peña’s Home Sweet Home.Third, I wanted to showcase the work of women horror filmmakers from across the globe. Sit back, enjoy, and prepare to stack up a TON of new viewing recs.
Language: English
Director: Alison Peirse
Duration: 21min
LALANNA’S SONG (INDIAN FILM – LIVE QNA)
Virtual screening is not available
Synopsis
Lalanna’s Song is a cautionary look into small acts of hate taking place in this age of abundance.
Two young mothers, Miriam and Shoby, encounter twelve-year-old Lalanna whose ways
unwittingly unsettle them, and they take deceptively small measures in setting her straight.
Director: Megha Ramaswamy
Duration: 34min
⁃ The Astronaut and his Parrot
Virtual screening is not available
Synopsis
An accident causes a spaceship to explode and an astronaut tumbles out of it. He starts floating and falling in space and frantically tries to connect to someone.
Language: Hindi
Director: Arati Kadav
Duration: 15:34 mins
ABNORMAL PRIME TIME (INDIA PREMIERE)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/abnormal-prime-time
Synopsis
Seoul has changed day and night due to the extreme UV rays caused by the climate crisis.Born in 1992, her younger sister In-Kyung, who lives with her older sister who works at her job, lives as
a freelance insurance agent during the day and sleeps at night.One day, In-Kyung gets a phone call from her sister telling her to come out right away at midday when everyone is asleep.
Language: Korean
Director: Kirin SINN
Duration: 14min
⁃ Spiralling into desire (INDIAN FILM – LIVE QNA) (INDIA PREMIERE)
https://wenchff.festivalsaints.com/movie/spiralling-into-desire
Synopsis
Spiralling into Desire is a Movement X Film collaboration that traces a woman’s descent into her deep body to access and retrieve her true autonomy. This experimental film is set at the intersection of cinema, movement arts,psychology and spirituality. Inspired by the practice and discipline of authentic movement and natural dreamwork, the film builds on both – the creative process and the witnessing process, as it explores the question ‘how do we hold desire in our bodies’.
Language: English
Director: Roohi Dixit
Duration: 16min
