HUESERA
A young couple are expecting their first child. But the initial happiness is overshadowed when the mother-to-be starts having ominous visions full of otherworldly figures. Something between the domestic thriller ‘The Babadook’ and the folklore of ‘La Llorona’, this atmospheric debut brilliantly reinvents the motif of pregnancy as the ultimate symbol of body horror. As the heroine gradually loses herself in her attempt to live up to the oppressive expectations of those around her and her ‘duty’ as a mother, the film turns into a chilling allegory about a woman’s right over her own body. Winner of the Best New Narrative Director award at the Tribeca Film Festival.
MEXICO, PERU | 2022 | COLOR | DCP | 97’ | SPANISH
‘Repulsion’ meets ‘The Exorcist’, with a stop at (a la Guandagnino) ‘Suspiria’. The breathing of the great Polanski, expectedly through ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, falls heavy on this promising debut by Cervera from Mexico. The film deals with a young woman who aches to have a child but it remains to be seen whether she can endure the consequences. The tensions the film depicts are multifaceted and the incisions made surgical: family, sex, religion, supernatural horror, folklore, physical mutation, mix together in the wonderfully spacious drama, serving eerily a Latin American study οn Women and the often unbridgeable distance between chromosome XX and the entirely different unique character. Skilful and haunting. Ι.D.
DIRECTOR: Michelle Garza Cervera
SCREENWRITERS: Abia Castillo, Michelle Garza Cervera
DoP: Nur Rubio Sherwell
MUSIC: Gibrán Androide, Cabeza de Vaca
EDITOR: Adriana Martínez
PRINCIPAL CAST: Natalia Solián, Alfonso Dosal, Mayra Batalla, Mercedes Hernández, Aída López, Martha Claudia Moreno
MICHELLE GARZA CERVERA
Mexican director. She studied at Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica in Mexico and holds an MFA from Goldsmiths, London. Her short films have been chosen at several international festivals while her debut feature film won Best Narrative Debut and ‘Nora Ephron’ Award at Tribeca.
FILMOGRAPHY
2022 Huesera
