New Restoration of Nina Menkes' THE BLOODY CHILD to Premiere at 2021 New York Film Festival

Released by Arbelos Films, the new restoration of Nina Menkes' 1996 film The Bloody Child will receive its world premiere at the 2021 New York Film Festival. Long out of circulation, the iconic independent filmmaker's hallucinatory meditation on violence has been restored by the Academy Film Archive and Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation. More information about Menkes' films and Criterion Channel interview.

The Bloody Child screens on Tue 9/28 at 8:45pm in the Walter Reade Theater, and Fri 10/1 at 4:15pm in the Howard Gilman Theater in New York. Ticket Information.

At its initial release, The Bloody Child was hailed as "brilliant... an awe-inspiring rigorous work of art on the highest level" by the Los Angeles Times. Director Gus Van Sant called it "one of the year's greatest films from one of my favorite filmmakers!"

In The Bloody Child, a young US Marine, recently back from the Gulf War, is found in California's Mojave Desert digging a grave for his murdered wife. Inspired by an actual event, Menkes turns the mundane incidents surrounding the Marine's arrest into a chronologically warped exploration of desolation and violence. The murdered wife's voice controls the airspace and haunts an alienated Marine captain played by the director's sister and creative collaborator Tinka Menkes. Thick and mute, the murderer-like unconscious violence- is always present but seen obliquely, or from the back.

The Bloody Child was shot in North Africa, and 29 Palms, California, home of the nation's largest Marine base. Using nonprofessional actors, Menkes employed active-duty enlisted Marines to play themselves.

"The film offers no evidence, no timelines, no clear locations, and no background on any of the very anonymous characters," comments Menkes. "In contrast to most Hollywood films, The Bloody Child doesn't use violence as a dramatic element. As in real life, the violence in the film damages, it ricochets in multiple directions, and generates negative energy which circles back and perpetuates itself."

Along with The Bloody Child, Arbelos has added Menkes' entire filmography to its catalog with the acquisition of The Great Sadness of Zohara (1983), Magdalena Viraga (1986), Phantom Love (2007), and Dissolution (2012). In 2019, Menkes' Queen of Diamonds was restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding from the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation, co-presented by EOS World Fund, and re-released by Arbelos to critical acclaim. Arbelos and Eos World Fund will co-present the re-release of Magdalena Viraga. Arbelos is planning a touring theatrical retrospective of Menkes' films, as well as digital and blu-ray boxset releases in 2022.

"I'm thrilled that The Bloody Child will have its world restoration premiere at the New York Film Festival, giving audiences the chance to experience Nina Menkes' powerful work" said Margaret Bodde, Executive Director of The Film Foundation. "The Film Foundation, along with our great partner, the Academy Film Archive, is proud to have helped restore this film, as well as Menkes' earlier feature, Queen of Diamonds. With the incredible support of the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation, we are unearthing and restoring these treasures to be rediscovered and reassessed as part of the ever-expanding cinema canon."

Menkes is in post-production on the feature-length documentary feature Brainwashed. The film shows how shot design is gendered, and explores the direct connection between this cinematic visual language, women's lack of proportional presence in key industry roles and the abuse and harassment which fueled the #MeToo movement.

Menkes' seven award-winning features have screened to wide acclaim at international film festivals including Cannes, Rotterdam, Toronto, Locarno and the Sundance Film Festival (four premieres). In 2021, a four-film retrospective of Menkes' films was featured on the Criterion Channel. Her film, Queen of Diamonds is currently a selection at the 2021 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. She is developing the narrative feature Heatstroke, about two sisters' estranged relationship. A Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow, Menkes is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science and is on the faculty of the School of Film/Video at California institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Arbelos is a Los Angeles-based film distribution and restoration label releasing canon-expanding art house cinema. Past releases include new 4K restorations of Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), Béla Tarr's Sátántangó (1994) and Damnation (1988), Nina Menkes' Queen of Diamonds (1991) and Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), among many others.