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What do Hueser’s films The Bone Woman, Wolfkin, Cerdita and The Night of the Hunter have in common?

23. July 2023

Is having children and being a blessing or a curse? Are the expectations of bringing children into the world, which society has placed on women since the beginning, in line with what they truly desire? How do children cope with the difficulties of adolescence, bullying or prejudice? And where do they look for role models when those closest to them fail them? The six films Cinematik will present in Cult & Beyond: Kids Are Not Alright explore the seemingly idyllic subject of childhood from surprising and frightening angles.

In her horror debut Huesera/The Bone Woman (Mexico/Peru, 2022), filmmaker Michelle Garza Cervera brings a dark take on the subject of motherhood, which doesn’t always come easily or joyfully into a woman’s life. The classic film-noir The Night of the Hunter (dir. Charles Laughton, USA, 1955), on the other hand, charts the fate of orphans pursued by a fanatical preacher obsessed with a tale of love and hate.

The heroine of the drama Wolfkin, dir. Jacques Molitor, (Luxembourg, 2022) is a mother who tries to save her son from his father’s hereditary curse. In Piggy (Cerdita, dir. Carlota Pereda, Spain/France, 2022), on the other hand, the teenage heroine reluctantly saves a trio of peers from a psychopathic killer in order to get revenge for bullying them.

The programme of the midnight section will close with the films 2551.01 “Kid” (2021) and 2551.02 “Orgy of the Damned” (2023) by Austrian director Norbert Pfaffenbichler. This is a dystopian interpretation of Charlie Chaplin’s classic grotesque, composed of nightmares, which draws the viewer into the action and atmosphere without a single spoken word.