Saturday, October 31, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
La Llorona Year 2019 Country Guatemala/France Language Spanish with English subtitles Runtime 97 min. Digital Color As legend has it, the malevolent ghost of La Llorona wanders along waterways searching for her two children who have drowned (either by her hand or by the hands of others) and seeks to avenge the man who has abused and abandoned her. She is an ominous figure whose apparition is preceded by the sound of her laments. Those who hear her cries are marked for death. In Jayro Bustamante’s film, these cries are intertwined with calls for social justice and solidarity within Indigenous communities. DCP. Director: Jayro Bustamante. Screenwriters: Jayro Bustamante, Gustavo Matheu. With: María Mercedes Coroy, Sabrina De La Hoz, Margarita Kénefic. Screening 2 of 2 Pulse (Kaïro) Year 2001 Country Japan Language Japanese with English subtitles Runtime 119 min. Digital Color In Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s apocalyptic ghost fiction, Kaïro, the technologization of contemporary life leads to the collapse of human relations and communication, and the loss of a shared history. A classic of techno-horror cinema, exemplary of Japanese cinema’s reinvention of the Kaidan or spirit story genre, Kaïro remains one of the most memorable evocations of modern technologies of communication as spectral conduits. Feeding on the growing uncertainty between touch and vision, the film stands as a transitional cinematic experiment, between so-called digital dematerialization and the eventuality of spectral forms of corporeality. DCP. Director/screenwriter: Kiyoshi Kurosawa. With: Kumiko Aso, Haruhiko Kato, Koyuki.