Grrl Haus Cinema is a nonprofit film festival, screening series, and collective dedicated to promoting the works of women, trans, non-binary, and genderqueer filmmakers in the realms of experimental, low-budget, and underground cinema. Bloodletter contributors reviewed five short films showcased in Grrl Haus Cinema’s Best of 2024 Festival.

dir. Christina Acevedo

A quick look at women’s fashion and beauty trends throughout history shows that women have always endured suffering to achieve a certain look. That certain look was meant to signify class, or sometimes occupation, but most importantly, to appeal to men. From skin bleach and toxic lead cosmetics to corsets and neck-crushingly heavy wigs, the “beauty is pain” adage has been true for as long as women have been able to put on clothing and, well, be perceived by the male gaze. 

When we dress today, as modern women, many of us self-proclaimed feminists, we can say we put ourselves together with an awareness of society’s objectification and aesthetic expectation forced onto women. But can we actually, meaningfully distance ourselves from it? We can say we love a pair of shoes because of our own tastes, but was the creation of those shoes also removed from, plainly, what men want? What power does performance have if you’re indulging in the desires of the oppressor, or does that simply make one wiser and more powerful?

Writer and director Christina Acevedo masterfully infuses this modern-day parable with moody style in black and white, professing a clear love of the horror genre in both plot and performance. Her short The Pointy Shoes spins these age-old questions into a dark fairy tale, a body-horror odyssey that ends with a shift in power, but not necessarily a happy ending.

A woman (Lindsey Sagrera) sits before two mirrors, her kohl-lined eyes focused on her reflection as she applies a layer of lipstick and studies herself once more before gazing lovingly to her left. There, a pair of light-colored, pointy kitten-heels sit, brand new atop the tissue in their box. She slides them on—a perfect fit—and her first-date look is complete. 

We watch the woman descend down a disorienting spiral staircase, the camera slightly tilted, before she leaves her house, creating a sense of unease and forecasting the unsettling events to come. She meets her date (Alex Lukmann), first introduced to us with his comfortable, classic pair of Converse juxtaposed next to her pointy slippers. Billed as ‘the boy’ (which is how I’ll refer to him from now on), he’s a photographer, and immediately snaps a photo before they begin their date: a walk by the water through a trail in the nearby park. At several points the woman looks down uncomfortably at her feet, which are beginning to show signs of blisters. But at each pause, the boy gives her a smile, tells her to pose and snaps a photo, and she obliges. Further down the path the boy leaves her side to go relieve himself in a nearby bush (imagine how he would react if she were to do the same), and she takes the moment out of his eyesight to remove her shoes and inspect her feet. They’re covered in painful, oozing, pus-erupting blisters, but as he returns she shoves her feet back in and continues onward. 

Eventually they arrive at the shoreline, where the boy, feeling romantic (and completely ignorant of her discomfort), takes the woman in his arms and spins her around and around until her bloodied and blistered feet are lifted from the ground. After he kisses her, she repels backward, and in a fit reminiscent of Isabel Adjani’s infamous subway freak-out in Possession, she finally allows herself to erupt in an exorcism of pain and rage; the terrible expectation of being a woman consuming her.

She collapses, and rises again without the shoes on. In her comfort and power that stemmed from such violent pain, she approaches the boy (taking yet another photo), and attacks him with the pointy toe of her slipper. This act breaks her out of his gaze, ends her role as the perfect, well-put together woman, and releases her from the incredible suffering. But for how long?

dir. Katie King

Using primarily the unexpected mediums of colourful textile art and black-and-white photography, Katie King weaves a tale of espionage, addiction, and an unexpected connection between two strangers. The narrator’s smooth, stylish voice-over, combined with the life and energy of the textile animation, gives Made For Duty Overseas the hazy effect of a noir film that you once watched in a dream.

Sri Lanka, December. Our tale opens to the narrator (Arabella Lindsay) floating in the hotel pool beneath a full moon, alone—until another woman (Valya Korabelnikova), whom the narrator has never seen before, emerges from the hotel. The strange woman is the quintessential lead character of all good noir stories: intriguing, mysterious, quite definitely a spy, and most importantly, prone to indulging in a sexy kind of vice. Vogue menthol cigarettes, in this case. Banned for sale in the UK, which makes them sexier.

We are fascinated. The narrator is fascinated, too, as—despite claiming to despise menthol cigarettes—she takes the stranger’s proffered cigarettes and sticks them between her lips. The pair share smoke and secrets as the night passes overhead. “I can’t tell you what we talked about,” says the narrator coyly, but she sketches the bones of their conversation for us—democracies falling, borders, passports, information bought and exchanged and sold. Something interesting that we might note is that both women, though they appear relatively young, have false teeth. They remove their teeth to converse—an easier way to smoke, or a mutual agreement to let their respective guards down, to trust the other when discussing such delicate and seditious matters?

Their conversation continues unimpeded into the early hours of the morning. Then the cigarettes go out, the smoke stops curling in the air; the mysterious stranger retires for the night, leaving our narrator to pull herself from the water and ruminate on her words.

England, January. The narrator returns home to a waxing moon and the knowledge that the encounter by the pool has changed something within her. We see that she exchanges her false teeth—worn, yellowed, rather stereotypically British—with pearly white ones, teeth that look more like the ones that the woman in Sri Lanka kept behind her lips. Yet she makes no other move to alter herself, does not involve herself in politics or grassroots organisations. It is almost as though she is waiting for something.

And then, coming home from work, the narrator spots it. Photographed for evidence, positioned almost purposefully in her empty apartment hallway—an empty package of Vogue menthol cigarettes.

I hate menthol, the narrator reminds us. Surely, we think, this is a sign. The narrator certainly does. How else could these cigarettes have made it here, to her home and to her country where they are so unwelcome? Surely she had been significant enough to linger in the stranger’s mind, to be considered worthy of contact? Look at how the conversation had impacted her, after all.

We wonder: Is it really a coded message from a spy met by moonlight or simply a bored woman’s mind conjuring conspiracy out of clutter?

The narrator seems convinced. On the discarded box, she highlights these words: Made For Duty Overseas.

And then the film ends, leaving us to speculate if she follows this enigmatic message to live out daring escapades as a spy abroad or if she returns to a quiet life in London, smoking perfectly legal cigarettes, her teeth growing a fresh patina of nicotine.

Made For Duty Overseas is a brief but beautifully stylised film, one that captures the imagination and leaves us with room for interpretation. Even if the narrative was not so charming, it would be worth a watch purely for the impressive artistry of the textile arts animation. An excellent short film for fans of noir cinema, with a colourful and feminine twist.

dir. Josefin Arnell

At first glance, this off-kilter short might seem light hearted. It starts with a goofy zombie scene shot in broad daylight, and continues with a series of strange events. A vampire real estate developer (Sabine Beilfuss) is scheming to build a luxury spa with bungalows in a town in the Netherlands, with the help of a Wizard (Wansley Kleberg). They work out a contract with The Man of the City (Leo Westra), planning to banish the people of the neighborhood using an evil spell. You see, the vampire prefers to employ fish, and not people. The spell works quickly, and things start going sideways. An espresso machine overflows and coffee spreads all over the floor, meatballs squirt goo right into the faces of diners, horns pop out of foreheads, and snakes start crawling amid a knitting circle as the dolls they knit get messed up. The people of the neighborhood try to save themselves, but are easily distracted by jewelry that falls out of the fish mouths. Their greed becomes their true enemy as they abandon any effort to overpower the spell, entranced by the expensive objects. The vampire wins the battle, and wins herself a juicy lover too: the cat-like receptionist at the City Hall (Marlène van den Camp).

A funky chain of events indeed, yet a close look into the plotline and filmmaker Josefin Arnell’s record provides a clear picture of the intent behind this work. What could be perceived as messy or random is realized to be deeply intentional. The script was written in the local community center of White Buoy, a small neighborhood in Amsterdam where Arnell lives. Both the writing process and the film production was done in collaboration with the neighborhood residents, who are facing a painfully real housing crisis, not much different from what the characters in the film are forced to deal with. In a series of weekly screenplay workshops with this group, Arnell created a horror film about the actual horrors in life. This project is ambitiously political: not only does it speak directly about big enterprises forcing common people to lose their homes, it also tackles themes of queer sexuality and struggles with addiction. The characters, all played by the people of the neighborhood, are chatting a lot. And their conversations about broken love affairs, gayness, resistance to capitalism, and family drama, sound spontaneous and sincere. Without being obvious, Arnell brings forth firsthand stories of disenfranchised individuals. In this context, the cheap effects and bootlegged makeup work are a natural choice, making it clear that there is room for play and experimentalism as opposed to the harshness of perfectionism in an already harsh living situation. 

In making this project, Arnell achieved the true goal of filmmaking: bringing a community together. The commitment of the actors to their roles speaks to their enchantment with the project. Many of them are retired, not classically attractive, and certainly inexperienced in acting; yet, the star quality is there. They joyfully provide a hilarious, satisfying performance. Together with Arnell, this community made an effective and fun short, proving that an inclusive and non-hierarchical filmmaking process is a highly viable option.  

dir. Coco Roy

Coco Roy’s short film Sogno Rosso asks questions rather than answers them. It evades clear narrative in favor of nonlinear sequencing, quick cuts, no dialogue, and superimposed camera shorts. The film follows a set of witches as they haunt the narrator’s mind, running through the forest and drowning in a lake. Sogno Rosso translates to “dreams in red,” and, indeed, it’s surreal, uncanny, and very red.

As with many surrealist films, Sogno Rosso experiments with alternate senses of temporality, favoring psychological (or private) time over public time. In The Culture of Time and Space, Stephen Kern traces the evolution of standard time, distinguishing between “public” and “private” time. Public time is that which is measurable in days, minutes, hours. It was socially constructed around human rituals and activities in order to organize human life. On the other hand, private time is that which is relative to each person and bound by no rules. Due to the seamlessness or “stream” within which consciousness exists, there is no sense of public time, as the mind can oscillate between memories from the past, thoughts about the future, and the fixation of the present. The mind can condense time, replay the past, imagine the future in such a way that creates a “psychological time.”

The non-narrative structure of Sogno Rosso accurately represents the experience and processing of grief through psychological time. Freud posits that which is repressed is repeated rather than remembered. The film explores this sort of imprinted memory and entrapment in the traumatic experience with the repetition of water imagery. Sometimes the water is a lake, a drink, a symbol of purification; other times, it is the marker of death.

Instead of structuring the film through distinct scenes, Ray chooses to let it play out in fragments. Shots overlap each other such that two different things are often happening simultaneously. In the beginning of the film, there is a shot of a lake superimposed on two pairs of hands moving a transparent sheet up and down. This shot is returned to at the end of the film, with one key difference: This time a dead body floats in the lake. By bookending the film with these shots, it takes on a sense of circular temporality that mirrors psychological time.

At a different point in the film, someone pours a bottle of water into a chalice. In another shot, a woman dangles her fingers over a lit candle and brushes them through her hair. When these clips are superimposed, it appears that the woman is positioned in the center of the chalice and that the water is pouring over her, almost as if she is bathing in it. In this instance, water is a source of cleanliness and life. In other parts of the film, water is a site of death. The uncanny image of the water simultaneously foreshadows and flashes back in time so that we experience the film the way the narrator experiences grief. Though often called “surreal,” this is perhaps the closest depiction to how our unconscious works. Our mind follows no coherent narrative, and emotions have no sense of time. In this film, grief is not a set of stages we can progress through, nor is it something that can be clearly defined at all; grief is a return to an image.

dir. Elif Öner

As one of the characters in Turkish director Elif Öner’s short film “Crybaby” so pointedly puts it: “Not everything is always about you.” 

I am an unapologetic fan of HBO’s Girls. What can I say? Watching four privileged women navigate their twenties in New York City speaks to me more than it should. And I can’t think of any female character in modern media with a more inflated sense of self-importance than Lena Dunham’s Hannah Horvath. 

As I watched “Crybaby” for the first time, the spirit of Hannah Horvath spoke directly to my body, mind, and soul. “I think that I may be the voice of my generation,” she said. “Or at least a voice. Of a generation.” 

And that quote embodies my feelings about “Crybaby” quite aptly. For many emerging artists in the age of the internet, a victim complex is the paintbrush and self-aggrandizement is the canvas. 

At the core of the matter, we all have something that we want to say, emotions to convey, words that we think will strike a chord with someone else. Art is the language of connection. What many fail to realize, though, is that most experiences aren’t entirely unique—it is the delivery that entices the observer. 

At the beginning of “Crybaby,” we see a video of a much younger Elif, the director and main character, lips pouted and shouting at the people around her at a party without justified cause. It is nothing unusual. Children generally lack the emotional awareness and regulatory tools to appropriately compose themselves. As the short film progresses, however, we realize that Öner (or at least the Öner depicted) has not yet developed these skills, even as an adult. While Elif is the main character and may be purposefully unlikable, I didn’t feel compelled to root for her throughout the short’s runtime. It seems that Öner possessed the awareness that this character is flawed, but we don’t see a complex exploration of why. Instead, Elif’s inexplicable hostility is the cornerstone of the piece.

In many ways, this could be intentional. The main character is named Elif, the footage at the beginning of the short features a young Elif, and the piece was written and directed by Elif. From this, we can assume that the project is a partially autobiographical account of Öner’s experiences. 

However, even when art is derived from experience (as almost all art is), audiences need to connect with the premise in some way. While Hannah Horvath is exceptionally annoying, she is also relatable and vulnerable at times. Elif, on the other hand, comes off as unnecessarily hostile and demanding throughout the 17-minute runtime. 

“Crybaby” follows Elif as she prepares to embark abroad to get her master’s degree. She arrives at a surprise party where she doesn’t know most of the guests, and her companion mentions that this is because she doesn’t have many friends. Elif proceeds to scold one of her friends for inviting someone that she doesn’t like. She also eats a “special” brownie with some of the guests. In another scene, Elif tells a stranger that she tried to commit suicide by taking pills, and her mother had to take her to the hospital. She concludes the interaction with a candid “nice to meet you.” 

Later, Elif’s mother arrives at the party’s doorstep, toting a bag of fruit and a special gift that we later discover is a piece of jewelry. Again, Elif approaches the situation with hostility, and we, as the viewers, lack the interiority to decipher why. Elif rejoins the party and promptly has a panic attack, and her boyfriend arrives at the party late and breaks up with her. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that Elif has been hallucinating glitter-drenched demons ever since she stepped foot into the party. While this seems like a detail that should be foregrounded, the plot point is cast aside, as most of the runtime is devoted to Elif’s personal dramas. 

In the final sequence of the short, Elif falls asleep next to her friends and is awoken in the middle of the night by a mysterious ambiance. She follows the feeling to another room, and the demons make another appearance. They are dancing, their bodies glistening with horns protruding from their foreheads. Elif joins the demons and begins to cry, as the title would suggest, before erupting into laughter right as the credits roll. Notably, this is the happiest moment that we see her in the short film.

I am never one to say no to a terror-ridden party, and there are elements of “Crybaby” that hark back to Gaspar Noé’s 2018 Climax—the disorienting lighting, drug use, and alarming hallucinations. But “Crybaby” falls short in that it lacks the development that makes even dislikable characters worth rooting for, as the character has no awareness for anyone aside from herself. Instead, it is scattered, disorganized, and generally very gauche. The most horrific elements—the hallucinated demons, paranoia, and hysteria—take a backseat to Elif bad-mouthing her friends, screaming at her mother, and crying about her boyfriend. A more thorough exploration of what these demons symbolize could’ve helped the emotions translate from the screen. 

None of this is to say that Öner lacks promise; there are several admirable qualities presented in the short film, including cinematography and concept. However, the material needed to be navigated with a keener awareness of reality—that the world doesn’t bend around the will of one person, especially if that person is as hostile as Öner’s character is portrayed. 

Perhaps I was just craving more demons and less drama. Perhaps there was some element that I missed in my multiple viewings of this short. Alternatively, perhaps we could all benefit from a heightened cognizance of the world outside of ourselves. 

Not everything is about you, and that is okay!