Bleedfest A Monthly Film Festival Circa 2010-2011
This was the official website for Bleedfest, a monthly film festival featuring “edgy genre work” by women filmmakers.Based on recommendations by industry experts, the Fies have not held a BleedFest event since November 2011.
Content is from the site's 2010-2011 archived pages providing just a glimpse of what this site offered its followers.
The current site for Bleedfest can be found at: https://bleedfest.wordpress.com/
We are…
Festival founders and directors Elisabeth Fies and Brenda Fies are a filmmaking duo whose critically acclaimed feature thriller THE COMMUNE was embraced by multiple genre communities (as well as The Huffington Post). They feel thrilled to fill a hole in the industry by providing access to fantastic genre-blenders by indie female filmmakers systematically excluded from the sausagefest that is top tier genre festivals.
BleedFest disproves the prevailing myth that there are no female filmmakers making indie genre movies. Explains Elisabeth Fies about the discrepancy between reality and Hollywood attention for genre female filmmakers, “It’s not even about being taken seriously. It’s about being discounted to the point that you’re invisible and told you don’t exist. BleedFest aims to prove to the world that hundreds of us ovary-challenged filmmakers are here, and we’re making bold, exciting movies film lovers need and don’t want to miss. We’re positive, we’re fun, we’re in partnership with men, and we’re unstoppable.”
The Fies Sisters thank everyone for the outpouring of support and excitement about BleedFest that helped them reach their IndieGoGo fundraising campaign in under two weeks (CLICK HERE for our newest campaign), and the many friendly programmers from other film festivals who generously provided selection suggestions.
Tickets
All Day Tickets may be purchased for $10 cash at the door or in advance through our Indie GoGo fundraising campaign.
Participate in our monthly charity event sometime between 11:00am-4pm and get in for half price: only 5 dollars!!
The event includes:
- open bar
- red carpet event
- networking
- awards ceremony
- four hours of films by badass women
DATE:
First Sunday of the month
TIME:
11am-4:00pm
EVENT VENUE:
CAP Theatre
13752 Ventura Blvd.
Sherman Oaks, CA 91423
Alumni
From our happy alumni:
“Thanks to Bleedfest, MORBID CURIOSITY has been invited to screen at All Things Horror in Massachusetts this coming February! Woo Hoo!! Thanks to Brenda Fies Elisabeth Fies and all of you amazing people!!! ♥ ♥” – Cindy Baer, MORBID CURIOSITY, Audience Award Winner December 2010
“This was a most awesome event. Brought my entire Batman fan club and we had a blast. We're all fans of horror and this was a perfect social event for the Batladies. We appear in our colorful Batman shirts or other Batman gear. We know we make an impression because we're always asked where we get our shirts - MoonAtMidnight.com is our main source. The t shirts page has a huge amount of Batman info including his early days, trivia, capabilities, college courses, post in Scientific American, villains, films, etc. Lots of cool stuff about Batman that I never really knew about but is hugely entertaining to learn, including a new post on our hero confronting social ills. Turns out that Bleedfest people tend to be Batman fans because the Dark Knight scares the sh** out of evildoers. Bleedfest forever! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥” Diane Livak, DEADLY DORA
“It was fucking incredible. Seeing these wonderful films with such a great horror crowd was awesome — let me tell you, boys and girls, film making powerhouse sisters Elisabeth and Brenda Fies know how to throw a party. It was with great sadness that we packed our bags and headed back up to Canada after the fest. What an incredible opportunity to see and screen fantastic indie movies that often go unnoticed against the big studio blockbusters. From experience let me tell you, the ladies really know their horror shit. They are smart and they welcome you to the festival with a level of kindness and sincerity that makes you feel like family. It is a great event to showcase your work. This fast approaching December 5th marks the first of many upcoming Bleedfest, a bloody good time.”- Sylvia Soska, DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK.
“Thank you so much for all the support.” – Amanda Gusack, IN MEMORIUM
“I received word that one of my shorts will be played during Bleedfest’s February festival! An already huge honour was made even more so by the fact that February is Women in Horror month! Thank you Elisabeth Fies!” – Lori Bowen, ESSENGER, AFTERSHOCK
Amanda Gusack’s critically acclaimed supernatural feature IN MEMORIUM is now available for streaming online through Indieflix! Watch this amazing film RIGHT NOW for only $5.99! Amanda’s follow up feature, the fantastic genre bending multimillion dollar thriller THE BETRAYED stars Melissa George and is available for rent at Blockbuster and Netflix.
Networking in the happy BleedFest lobby!
DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK has played over a dozen more festivals, signed with a sales agent, and the Soska Sisters are announcing their next feature film AMERICAN MARY with a trailer on their site December 11th, 2010! The Soska have made several shorts that will be playing upcoming BleedFest events…look for the darkly humorous suspense tale BAD GIRLS to play December 5th as we launch into our monthly bleeding pattern! What’s that? You say you can’t make it? Well then you may watch the awesome 7 minute BAD GIRLS short on their site for free…right now.
Q&A with Soska's Dead Hooker team
Thriller short SIMONE by Jenine Mayring has played in two more film festivals! Simone’s Facebook page.Her new music video for indie singer Emii’s song MY ZOMBIE BOYFRIEND just won a silver International Davey Award. MY ZOMBIE BOYFRIEND will screen February 6th, 2011 at our Women In Horror Recognition Month Event.
Jenine Mayring's Q & A for SIMONE
THE COMMUNE has played in five more film festivals. It was awarded “Best International Picture” at Bram Stoker Film Festival, and director Elisabeth Fies received “Best Emerging B-Movie Filmmaker” from The B Movie Celebration. Special Edition DVDs are on sale at TheCommuneMovie.com and there are 200 copies for you to rent at Netflix!
Producers of THE COMMUNE Brenda Fies and Heidi Hornbacher
PRESS
Rants and Raves: BleedFest
Celebrating Badass Genre Filmmaking By Women
Monday, January 3, 2011
By Beth Accomando, KPBS Arts & Culture Reporter
It's that time of the month… for BleedFest. BleedFest is a monthly LA film festival celebrating indie genre movies made by and about women. Yesterday it held its Badass Genre Film Festival.
BleedFest is the brainchild of energetic filmmaking sisters Elisabeth and Brenda Fies. It kicked off in July of last year and became a monthly event starting last December. It is held the first Sunday of the month at the Sherman Oaks' CAP Theater. As a woman and a lover of genre films, I was intrigued by the festival but missed their first two installments since the event is held in LA. But a few San Diegans have been making the trek to the festival and Tijuana filmmaker Cathy Alberich had her film "Algesia" screened at the December showcase. So I hitched a ride with Miguel Rodriguez a fellow genre enthusiast (and host of Monster Island Resort) and went up for the January installment. The lack of any similar themed event down here makes it necessary for anyone interested in such female-made genre fare to travel up north.
The Fies sisters were motivated to start this because, "We feel passionate about raising the visibility of awesome indie genre movies by female filmmakers. BleedFest fetes the women who love writing, producing, directing, and watching badass genre movies: action, thriller, sci-fi, horror, western, exploitation (of men or audience only), B-movie, and erotica."
........entire article can be found at: www.kpbs.org/news/2011/jan/03/rants-and-raves-bleedfest/
While I love to see women challenge conventions and expand their roles behind the scenes, I don't feel that every film made by a woman deserves to be championed. And I don't feel like I have to be a cheerleader for any film made by a women or with a strong female lead. In fact I tend to set the bar high because only by focusing attention on the very best women are doing can we start to make inroads into the male dominated industry and convincing Hollywood that women should be given as many opportunities as men. So I wish the feature showcased had been stronger. But kudos to the sisters for curating these events and for finding such gems like "Dead Hooker," "Ugly on the Inside," "Stop I'm Not Dead Yet," and "Lunar." BleedFest is also great for keeping attention focused on the issue of women filmmakers and the depiction of women in film.