Roma '23 (2025)

The Monster of the Opera

A theater troupe's young, energetic leader has secured an old theater in which to produce his new production. The theater's elderly caretaker urges the group to leave at once. A vampire is awakened and discovers that one of the troupe is the reincarnation of the woman who he once loved.

The Order

For centuries, a secret Order of priests has existed within the Church. A renegade priest, Father Alex Bernier, is sent to Rome to investigate the mysterious death of one of the Order's most revered members. Following a series of strangely similar killings, Bernier launches an investigation that forces him to confront unimaginable evil.

Shaye Saint John: The Triggers Compilation

Welcome to the funbubble! Over 2 hours of bizarre entertainment. Meet Shaye Saint John, former supermodel who now has no arms of legs and her special friend Kiki (a burnt doll). This series of shorts documents the daily collision of Shaye's glamorous fantasies with the realities of the physical limitations of her everyday life. These films with their juxtaposition of child-like imagery can be genuinely disturbing without a hint of blood, violence, nudity, cursing, or off-color subject matter of any sort. Watching Shaye do her schtick is akin to watching a segment of one of John Waters' early flicks. There is no question about the fine line between maddness and genius here -- it's madness, plain and simple, dizzying in its detachment to reality. Depending on your outlook, Shaye Saint John is either a true testimony to the power of art to rise above adversity or these films are hidden footage from a ward for the criminally insane!

Deiphago

Plot unavailable

Damned on the run

Two damned women escape from hell and discover the modern world. They are followed by Hades coming to collect their souls.

20 Million Miles to Earth

When the first manned flight to Venus returns to Earth, the rocket crash-lands in the Mediterranean near a small Italian fishing village. The locals manage to save one of the astronauts Colonel Calder, the mission commander. A young boy also recovers what turns out to be a specimen of an alien creature. Growing at a fantastic rate, it manages to escape and eventually threatens the city of Rome.

The Mother of Tears

An ancient urn is found in a cemetery outside Rome. Once opened, it triggers a series of violent incidents: robberies, rapes and murders increase dramatically, while several mysterious, evil-looking young women coming from all over the world are gathering in the city. All these events are caused by the return of Mater Lacrimarum, the last of three powerful witches who have been spreading terror and death for centuries. Alone against an army of psychos and demons, Sarah Mandy, an art student who seems to have supernatural abilities of her own, is the only person left to prevent the Mother of Tears from destroying Rome.

The Shadow of the Cage

Education is a caged bird. This short film pays homage to experimental cinema, which is characterized by the absence of narrative, lack of focus, paint or scratches on the screen, abrupt cuts and asynchronous sound. With the aim of redefining our way of seeing, exploring new spatial and temporal concepts.

Fatal Frames

Alex Ritt, a music video director comes to Italy to direct a video for pop sensation Stefania Stella. He soon encounters a mysterious killer who videotapes his victims for the police. As the horrible murders continue, Ritt is unknowingly pushed into the killer's games and he soon becomes a target of the police. The video-killer is on the loose and Ritt must find out the truth before it's too late.

The Girl Who Knew Too Much

A tourist witnesses a murder and finds herself caught up in a series of bloody killings.

SIN PIEDAD

Under the relentless sun, a killer stalks through the mountains, where the innocence of a young couple becomes prey. With no shadows to hide their fate, the hunt is a macabre game in broad daylight, where fear is not hidden in the darkness, but burns with the rawness of the unperturbed noon.

Flying Daddy

One morning, Papa transforms into a giant insect in the futon, emerges instantly in front of the astonished family, breaks through the window and flies into the sky. Short animation by Keita Kurosaka for MTV Japan.

Bunnyhood

What could possibly be more important than feeding your daughter?

The New Flesh

On an isolated farm, a woman finds an injured and frightened woman in her old chicken coop. Moved by an inexplicable instinct, she decides to help her, without imagining that this silent encounter will awaken buried secrets. When tension finally gives way to trust, something dark approaches, bringing a truth that no one could have foreseen.

Fungi

As he falls down the spiral of personal obsession; a delusional mycologist finds himself in the midst of seeking the unattainable. Morals won't play a role in his relentless pursuit of transforming his being into fungus.

The World of Dario Argento 3: Museum of Horrors

Documentary about Dario Argento, "Profondo Rosso" shop in Rome, and most important works throughout his career.

The Return of the Lifeblood

An Assassin is cursed by the souls of the people he killed in the past. Now, he is a Grim Reaper, a demon who receives constant punishment for his sins. Consequently, on a journey to hell, an Entity confronts the Murderer in a philosophical-moral debate about the meaning of forgiveness, the imprisonment of guilt, and the existence of redemption.

Dark Relic

1099 A.D.: A battle-weary knight leads his men home from the Holy Land after years of fighting. But the supposedly holy relic he’s carrying bears a terrible curse…

The Severed Heads Are Smiling.

A passenger picks up a woman at dawn who is to be a guest until midnight. Their journey begins...

Flaming Creatures

Filmmaker and artist Jack Smith described his own film as a “comedy set in a haunted movie studio.” Flaming Creatures begins humorously enough with several men and women, mostly of indeterminate gender, vamping it up in front of the camera and participating in a mock advertisement for an indelible, heart-shaped brand of lipstick. However, things take a dark, nightmarish turn when a transvestite chases, catches and begins molesting a woman. Soon, all of the titular “creatures” participate in a (mostly clothed) orgy that causes a massive earthquake. After the creatures are killed in the resulting chaos, a vampire dressed like an old Hollywood starlet rises from her coffin to resurrect the dead. All ends happily enough when the now undead creatures dance with each other, even though another orgy and earthquake loom over the end title card.

I Am Your Grandma

An autobiographical video diary log recorded by Jillian Mayer for her unborn grandchildren.

Toby Dammit

During a trip to Rome, a debauched Shakespearian actor is tormented by the Italian film industry, fans, the press and the Devil, who appears as a little girl seeking to collect his head.

The Devil Inside

In Italy, a woman becomes involved in a series of unauthorized exorcisms during her mission to discover what happened to her mother, who allegedly murdered three people during her own exorcism.

The Long Walk

An animated short based on a scene from "The Long Walk" by Stephen King

Possibly in Michigan

A musical horror story about two young women who are stalked through a shopping mall by a cannibal. He follows them home, and here the victims become the aggressors.

Here After

When her teen daughter displays increasingly disturbing behavior after a near death experience, a mother becomes convinced the girl brought something evil back from the other side.

Death Carries a Cane

Kitty, a photographer living in Rome, witnesses the murder of a young woman at the hands of a razor-wielding black-gloved killer. Kitty and her fiancé Alberto go to the police, only to learn that two other witnesses to the crime have been slashed to death.

Leda + Swans

“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?

Wolf

Great Britain. 150AD. When four messengers sent by Rome to a plague infected Caledonia, with a message of peace and help for their King, go missing Rome has no choice but to send ten of their finest across Hadrian's Wall to find and bring them back. Led by their Captain, Domitius, (George McCluskey, "The Zombie King"), and two of their strongest warriors, Grackus, (Stuart Brennan, "Risen") and Nerva, (Mark Paul Wake, "Plan Z"), the legion soon realise that what lays in wait for them is something much worse than any plague or army known to man - And with them being picked off one by one on their journey back to the wall by a beast none of them can match, and survival being their only hope, will there be anyone left to warn Rome of the dangers it may now face. Fight For Rome. Fight For Caesar. Fight To Survive.

A Paw Over Dark

A washed up actor performs night after night in a grimy theater to a nearly empty audience. However, everything changes when a clueless dog jumps on stage.

The Pope's Exorcist

Father Gabriele Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Vatican, investigates a young boy's terrifying possession and ends up uncovering a centuries-old conspiracy the Vatican has desperately tried to keep hidden.

Boomerang

After using a mysterious hole to dispose of all his trash, a man faces unexpected consequences.

The Dog of Sarandi Alley

In this 57-second short film, a dog-like doll faces another doll. It begins with an innocent, playful tone, but quickly turns dark and unsettling. Bach’s classical music adds a heavy, melancholic mood to the scene. The Dog of Sarandi Alley is a strange and brief story about violence, loneliness, and the secrets hidden behind the simple faces of toys.

The Mysterious Island

On a volcanic island near the Kingdom of Hetvia rules Count Dakkar, a benevolent leader and scientist who has eliminated class distinction among the island's inhabitants. Dakkar, his sister Sonia and her fiance, engineer Nicolai Roget have designed a submarine which Roget pilots on its initial voyage just before the island is overrun by Baron Falon, despotic ruler of Hetvia. Falon sets out after Roget in a second submarine and the two craft, diving to the ocean's floor, discover a strange land populated by dragons, giant squid and an eerie undiscovered humanoid race.

HOLGER

Described as 'a fairytale with its roots in the worlds of dadaism and surrealism'.

Dizzy

Dealing with his pill addiction, Jinn suffers from vivid nightmares, featuring a monster that plagues his everyday life.

Lost Footage

How would a found footage film look if the footage was never found? This conceptual art experiment questions the very nature of film and cinema while serving as an ironic tribute to the found footage horror pop culture. The found footage format provides the narrative justification for such a film to exist: the non-existence exists because the footage existed yet it was lost and never found.

A Gaping Wound, A Grinning Mouth

A surreal horror film following an obsessive actress who finds herself trapped within a cursed theatrical production where she is forced to choose between her career and her life.

The Listener

Plot unavailable

Fine

After a period of time where her hearing begins to overtake her sight, Casandra searches for the cause of her problem, isolating herself from society. She starts having visions that remind her of the past and promise an apocalyptic future.

A Catalyst

A teenage boy is forced into making a decision within 60 seconds between a possible death, or being pulled into an unknown reality.

Subsurface

Trapped and alone, a young man must confront the pain he's ignored when he finds himself face-to-face with consequence.