Benasco

Inland Empire

December 2006 •English

An actress’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.

The Scary Movie

January 1993 •English

Martina and Sonja, cross-dress in vampire capes and werewolf claws, re-enacting familiar horror tropes. A corresponding soundtrack of stock screams and "scary" music suggests that the girls' toying with gender roles and power dynamics may have dire consequences.

Sirens 77 True Love

January 2024 •English

Two gay men in Japan discuss the end of their respective relationships.

THE WORLD IS CONSUMING ME AND I CAN'T RUN AWAY FROM THE FALL

December 2023 •Portuguese

Enys Men

May 2022 •English

A wildlife volunteer on an uninhabited island off the British coast descends into a terrifying madness that challenges her grip on reality and pushes her into a living nightmare.

The Waltz of a Lonesome Pigeon

May 2023 •English

An experimental fairy tale about life, death, and spreading your wings. After Cecilia witnesses a bird smashing into her window, she begins to notice her body transforming. Her skin starts to peel and little feathers start to grow out of her back. Will she fly away or end up like that poor little bird?

House

August 1977 •Japanese

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip to the countryside to visit her aunt at their ancestral house. She invites her six friends, Prof, Melody, Mac, Fantasy, Kung Fu, and Sweet, to join her. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

Leda + Swans

March 2023 •English

“Leda + Swans” depicts an infernal, mythic birth of cinema, dredging the violence and horror from Wallace McCutcheon’s comic short film “Photographing a Female Crook” (1904). Leda, who may or may not be a falsely accused young woman, is brought in for a mugshot by two officers. She first attempts to avoid the camera’s gaze, and, when overpowered and manhandled, contorts her face to ruin the photograph. However, her small rebellion proves futile; she was already being recorded, objectified, mapped, and co-opted by the Godhead of the director. As her body and image are repurposed and transmuted ad infinitum, the filmic universe also explodes into a supernova. What is born out of this suffering and manipulation is another example of our sublime medium and modern muse. She will not be last the Leda, and she may not even be the first. Who is the guilty party here? Is beauty a chimera in traditional cinema? Has the ephemeral cinema of the attractions and distractions era gone anywhere?

Bed & Breakfast

Invalid date •English

After a feverish dream, a paralysed dreamer finds themselves trapped within a purgatory of their sleep, as they begin to fuse with their bed. The purgatory begins to refract the dreamers mind, as they are confronted with multiple incarnations of themselves struggling to awake. Bed & Breakfast is inspired by the neurodivergent experience of procrastination, and inertia. Questioning the nature of memory, identity, and the fabric of reality, by plunging you into the psyche of a paralysed dreamer where reality is far repressed.

EGGspression

August 2023 •

Egglantine loves salt on her eggs. Eggbert prefers pepper. Who blinks first in this playful Easter ritual?

Midríase

March 2023 •Portuguese

Is the eye the window of the soul? - Mydriasis is a movie that reflects about the early discoveries of queerness and its impact on the self perception of a person.

Friend of the World

August 2020 •English

After a catastrophic global war, a young filmmaker awakens in the carnage and seeks refuge in the only other survivor: an eccentric, ideologically opposed figure of the United States military. Together, they brave the toxic landscape in search of safety... and answers.

Untitled Fall '95

September 1995 •English

Untitled Fall '95 takes the form of a wryly humorous video diary of an art school student (sharply played by Bag) in the midst of “finding herself” in New York City. We can see the diarist physically and emotionally evolving throughout her eight semesters in the Big Apple. Such onscreen “confessionals” stem from the first major example of reality TV, The Real World. Interspersed throughout are commercial-like vignettes that further critique what it’s like to live in the world today. In Untitled Fall '95, Bag displays a profound self-awareness that evokes empathy on behalf of the viewer, despite her work’s glaring artificiality.

Totally F***ed Up

August 1994 •English

Gay, alienated Los Angeles teens have a hard time as their parents kick them out of their homes, they don’t have money, their lovers cheat, and they are harassed by gay-bashers.

11 Letters Inside

April 1996 •Russian

This is a story about a man who believes that he has two “selves” - external and internal. That is, an organism is a certain conglomerate of cells, each of which is a separate individual. This hybrid creature has a certain common personal “I” that uses the entire organism, and is the organism itself, which has its own will. According to the character, one can communicate with him, which is what he is trying to do. He wants to reach him and comes up with different ways of communication: injecting substances under the skin or intravenously, tattooing texts on the body, swallowing objects. The answer would come in the form of a rash or other physical manifestation that had to be interpreted. As a result, communication is carried out and the second “I” agrees to die.

Lesbian Dogwood and the Disaster Life Thereof: Part 1

January 2023 •English

A nomadic homunculus ranger lives in the derelict wastelands of Neo Kansas City 2, where they barely survive and make friends, despite the constant chaos.

Now They Experience It All the Time...

February 2023 •English

The newest film by SamHel

Quando Ele Deitou Pela Penúltima Vez

Invalid date •Portuguese

ZAPPER!

February 2023 •English

In a surreal universe where bananas fire laser beams and soup cans are used as grenades, a wacky cast of gangsters are thrown into a deadly game to battle it out over a mystical longboard in this trippy take on the Tarantino crime genre.

Salem's Flames

October 2022 •English

A chauvinistic young man pays a visit to a new nightclub named "Salem's Flames", unaware that he is about to meet his comeuppance at the hands of a coven of witches.