‘Bowels of Hell’ Flushes Into Rotterdam Film Festival

International Film Festival Rotterdam has added a decidedly unorthodox genre title to its 2026 line-up, with Bowels of Hell (Privadas de suas vidas) set to make its world premiere at the Dutch event early next year. The film is co-written and co-directed by Brazilian filmmakers Gurcius Gewdner and Gustavo Vinagre, two figures known for operating at the outer edges of contemporary horror and experimental cinema.

Blending visceral body horror with dark absurdism, Bowels of Hell centres on Malu, a woman buckling under unresolved trauma and the strain of raising a defiant child. Her fragile reality fractures when a mysterious curse transforms toilets within her apartment building into lethal creatures, plunging her into a nightmarish scenario where domestic space itself becomes hostile. The film uses its grotesque premise to explore themes of grief, motherhood and psychological collapse, with everyday routines warped into sources of threat.

The cast includes Martha Nowill in the lead role, alongside Otávio Muller, Chandelly Braz, Marco Pigossi, Regina Braga, Olívia Torres, Bruce LaBruce and Brazilian screen icon Maria Gladys. The 111-minute feature is produced by Rodrigo Teixeira, Berta Marchiori and Tereza Alvarez, with cinematography by Daniel Venosa and editing by Rodrigo Carneiro. Music is composed by Arthur Joly, with sound design handled by Ruben Valdes and Henrique Chiurciu.

For Vinagre, the project follows a prolific run on the international festival circuit. His previous feature Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter won the Teddy Award at Berlin, while earlier films have screened at Berlinale and beyond. Gewdner, meanwhile, is a longstanding figure within Brazil’s underground horror movement, with cult titles such as Pazucus: Island of Vomit and Despair earning him a reputation for confrontational, transgressive work that frequently intersects with performance art and experimental music.

The film is backed by RT Features, the Brazilian production company founded by Teixeira, whose credits span a wide range of internationally recognised projects including The Lighthouse, Call Me By Your Name and The Witch. The company has maintained a strong presence at major festivals over the past decade, often bridging arthouse sensibilities with genre filmmaking.

While screening details for Bowels of Hell have yet to be announced, its selection places it within Rotterdam’s long-standing tradition of spotlighting formally daring and provocative cinema. The festival has previously championed films that test the boundaries of horror, and the inclusion of Gewdner and Vinagre’s latest suggests a continuation of that curatorial approach.

We’ll share more news as it comes.