Hoja Santa
2015 · 21m · México
Directed by Cesar Salgado Alemán
Genres: drama, horror, thriller
Ezequiel is in charge of secretly burning bodies in the factory where he lives; among one group of corpses is Ana, who awakens a strange fascination in him, generating a conflict between his desires and his fears.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A crematorium operator develops an eros-tinged obsession with a corpse—so flagrantly perverted and structurally bizarre that it makes most horror look toothless by comparison. This is the kind of premise that makes conventional programmers squirm, which is exactly why it works.
Salgado Alemán constructs a carefully calibrated descent into moral ambiguity within the factory's liminal space, where surrealism and psychological realism negotiate terms—a formally restrained study in transgression that recalls the body-horror lineage without surrendering to it.
The film's pivot hinges entirely on the moment Ana's eyes open: that single beat of stillness before desire collapses into dread reframes everything preceding it, and Salgado's refusal to look away forces the viewer into complicity rather than distance.