L-MAS Screening: “Hour of Blood” and Filmmaker Q&A with Marcella Ochoa

The Department of Radio-Television-Film (RTF) is excited to host filmmaker Marcella Ochoa as part of the Latino Media Arts and Studies (L-MAS) Speaker Series. Join us for a screening of Ochoa's new western horror short, Hour of Blood, starring Jesse Garcia (Flamin' Hot) and Isabella Leon (Under the Bridge). 

Hour of Blood takes place in 1915 Texas and is inspired by a dark period in Mexican American history. Like many of Ochoa's other films, Hour of Blood is a story of social justice, rooted in the Mexican American experience. Similar to the way she used the horror genre to address real life atrocities in the film Madres (2021), which she co-wrote for the "Welcome to the Blumhouse" series (a partnership between Blumhouse Productions and Amazon), Hour of Blood tells a story more terrifying than any demon or ghost could ever be.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with writer/director Marcella Ochoa; English Department Chair and  J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of American & English Literature, John Morán González; and RTF Assistant Professor Mirasol Enríquez.

The event is being co-sponsored by Latino Studies.

About the Filmmaker

Marcella Ochoa is originally from San Antonio and was named a rising Latina director by the Alliance of Women Directors in 2024. She recently wrote and directed the social justice horror short film, HOUR OF BLOOD. She also wrote and directed the award-winning short film MY NAME IS MARIA DE JESUS (distributed by HBO), which is about the Americanization of Mexicans, and the short horror film, WORRY DOLLS, which received an IMAGEN Award Nomination for Best Short Film. Ochoa co-wrote the social justice thriller, MADRES, a Blumhouse/Amazon production for which she received an NAACP Image Award Nomination for Outstanding Writing in a TV Movie. She started off her career working in International Publicity for Sony Pictures and was later hired as a Development Executive for producer Harald Kloser’s production company, where she worked with world-renowned director Roland Emmerich on multiple blockbuster projects. Ochoa is currently writing two horror films for Warner Bros and a horror film for Universal.