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Home  2016-17  Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
ยป2016-17 Season
THU, FEB 2, 2017, 7:30pm

February 26, 2019 by Susan Taunton

Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four

(Deborah S. Esquenazi, 2016)
The Loft Cinema / FREE
Co-presented by DOCSCAPES
Co-sponsored by THE INSTITUTE for LGBT STUDIES and Puertas Abiertas

After being wrongfully convicted of gang-raping two little girls during the Satanic Panic witchhunt era of the 80s and 90s, four Latina lesbians fight against mythology, homophobia, and prosecutorial fervor in their struggle for exoneration in this riveting ‘True Crime’ tale.

In 1994, four women were accused, tried and convicted of the heinous sexual assault of two young girls–as one newscaster puts it, “the modern version of the witchcraft trials.” Twenty years later, the four women have maintained their innocence, insisting that the accusations were entirely fabricated, and borned of homophobic prejudice and a late-90s mania about covens, cults and child abuse. A riveting and layered story that explores the web of prejudices in a contentious trial and the interrelated political and personal forces that work to convict those thought guilty, trampling the innocent in the process.

“Has your blood pressure been sufficiently raised by shows like “Making A Murderer” and movies like the “Paradise Lost” trilogy? Buckle up, because we’ve got another unbelievable true crime story that will leave you equal parts fascinated and furious.”
—INDIEWIRE, April 2016

Rolling Stone: Inside Case Behind Wrongful Conviction Doc ‘Southwest of Salem’

AfterEllen: Guilty of being QWOC: The San Antonio Four on being wrongly accused

New York Magazine: Director Deborah Esquenazi on What Drew Her to a Satanic-Ritual Abuse Trial in Texas

Curve Magazine: San Antonio Four Exonerated

Filed Under: 2016-17

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