Spit and Ashes

Spit and Ashes is a reimagining of the historical violence waged against women by patriarchal forces in the name of religion, medicine and family. The High Priestess embodies the wild, sexual and grotesque - the un-tamable hunger of female desire and the ultimate threat to male power. The Midwife is the spirit of all women who sought knowledge and agency over their own bodies and paid for their agency with their lives. Through a series of erotic and brutal rituals these women come together to reclaim their bodies and prepare for the fight ahead.

The High Priestess (Sadie Lune) and the Midwife (Dion De Rossi) encounter each other in the forest. Working their way through a series of rituals, some brutal, some sexual, some both, they prepare themselves to face the patriarchal world around them.

I also loved that while the film deals with the particular misogynist history of how witchcraft was dealt with, ultimately, it claims the power within witchcraft not just for women, but for queer people and for outsiders in general.