This film documents the Kukeri rituals in Bulgaria, focusing on the mask makers and performers who keep this ancient tradition alive. Their dedication to this agrarian custom is a visual testament to the power of tradition to provide hope and community in a time of diaspora and urbanization.
DocuDrama about 13th century pre-Christian culture. Danish spy Lars enters the tribal lands of the Baltic peoples, where he takes part in religious rites, cruel forays, gets high during the Summer Solstice, becomes slave to the Couronians and even fights the crusaders. Who were the last pagans of Europe and how did they live? It is a unique trip into the textures of the past and into the unknown lands of the Baltic Tribes.
Baltu ciltis
2018
6
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.
Baraka
1992
8
Bulharské oplakávacie piesne
1968
0
The dawn of the 21st Century has found much of modern society obsessed with occult mysteries, sadistic violence, and evil. Everything from cartoons and video games to recorded music and major theatrical films are being designed and promote to "satisfy" the public's insatiable lust for the macabre. Most disturbing is the rise in the practice of Satanism. Law enforcement agencies are unable to keep up with the increasing numbers of heinous, Satanically inspired crimes. Basically a remake of Devil Worship: The Rise of Satanism (1989) using the same footage.
Pagan Invasion, Vol. 13: Doorways To Satan
1991
10
A documentary on the surviving syncretic pagan midwinter customs of the British Isles, focusing on nine ritual celebrations ranging from the Moray Firth in the north, the Somerset Levels in the south, Humberside in the east, and County Kerry in the west. Featuring music by the Albion Band and narration by John Tams.
Here We Come A-Wassailing
1977
0
The Occult Experience
1985
6
Each live appearance of HEILUNG is a spectacular affair, where the lines blur between musical performance, ancient pagan rituals, past, and present. The Danish band found a fitting name for their opulent stage set and huge production: amplified history. Their viewers use other words such as "amazing, mind-blowing, goose bumps, unforgettable". As a tribute to the overwhelming demand of their fast- growing host of supporters, HEILUNG released a complete live show under the banner of 'LIFA', which was filmed at Castlefest 2017.
Heilung: Lifa - Live at Castlefest
2018
9
America Undercover looks at the phenomenon of Satanism in the World. It talks to practitioners of Satan worship and interviews those who claim that they have been victimized by it. It also talks to some of the people who want to stamp Satanism out for good. Same doc as 'In Satan’s Name', but with American narration.
By Satan Possessed: The Search for the Devil
1993
0
As Dimitar’s decades-long fight against enviousness, laziness and prejudice to keep the kukeri tradition in his region alive proves successful, it turns out to have really been a journey towards finding and maintaining his own inner peace all along. Told through a series of interviews and slices-of-life ranging from the tragic to the euphotic is a story of love and resilience.
Под кожите
2025
0
Part fictional documentary, part musical anthropology, scientific magic, and eco-anarchic utopian journey in a landscape of eight parts. You're Kaloyan, the sax player. Or Diana, the Gypsy dancer. You journey together through Bulgaria in search of the utopian village Dolphinovo. It's not Sofia, Paris or New York. That's why this story is rural, rustic and polyphonic. It's like a string of painted walls of village houses, folk songs and allegories. However, who is Ivo? And why does he lead you through these winter landscapes a year later?
България, тази вечна ерес
2013
0
Pagans
2019
0
The Balkans is home to an ancient pagan tradition where magic and mystery still have a sacred place in the cosmic order. The Kukeri festival has had a strong hold over Bulgarian cultural life since the fifth century, surviving the Ottomans, Christendom and communist rule. Every winter, hundreds of terrifying figures prowl snow-capped forests and village centers in search of evil spirits to dispel from their communities.
Kukeri
2020
0
Every year in June, the small Bulgarian village of Balgari celebrates St Constantine with a special ritual. Initiated ‘nestinari’ go into a music-induced trance and dance on bonfires in a display of religious passion.
Die Feuertänzer aus dem Strandscha-Gebirge
2020
0
May It Fill Your Soul is a film about Bulgarian traditional music, about the pain of emigration and the promise of immigration, and about a family with a century-long musical history. Bulgaria's astonishingly rich village music traditions include strong women's singing, musical instruments with roots its millennia-old pastoral lifestyle and its 500-year history in the Ottoman Empire, and its lively dancing in additive meters of 5, 7, 9, and 11 beats to the measure. These practices are presented through the lens of a musical family trained during Bulgaria's communist regime (1944-1989) to represent the best that Bulgaria had to offer the world, but who made the wrenching decision in the post-communist period to immigrate to the United States for the sake of their daughters' futures. From that vantage point they have been able to teach their art to, and "fill the souls" of, singers, dancers, musicians, and audiences all over the world.
May It Fill Your Soul
2016
0
The aging king of Israel, Ahab, falls under the influence of a young and beautiful but scheming Pagan woman named Jezebel and, against the advice of his advisers and the prophet Elijah, marries her. Her plan to introduce her idols to Israel angers God, who wreaks vengeance on Israel.
Sins of Jezebel
1953
5
As the plague decimates medieval Europe, rumours circulate of a village immune from the plague. There is talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to raise the dead. A fearsome knight joined by a cohort of soldiers and a young monk are charged by the church to investigate. Their journey is filled with danger, but it's upon entering the village that their true horror begins.
Black Death
2010
6
Rome, AD 303. Emperor Diocletian demotes his favourite, Sebastian, from captain of the palace guard to the rank of common soldier and banishes him to a remote coastal outpost where his fellow soldiers, weakened by their desires, turn to homosexual activities to satisfy their needs. Sebastian becomes the target of lust for the officer Severus, but repeatedly rejects the man's advances. Castigated for his Christian faith, he is tortured, humiliated and ultimately killed.
Sebastiane
1976
6
Walking in her home, Evelia experiences the past, the present and the future at the same time. In the symbolic life she leads, governed by the god Janus, everything around her seems to speak to her, until random visions are born poetic. Through the trance state that awakens the inner gaze, Evelia's anima connects with the anima mundi. Simonetta's eyes is about the memory that a person will leave behind; Evelia tells the viewer, with the language of the gaze: "one day, we will only be memory".
Ojos Simonetta
2023
0
The film is a drama about the aftermath of the 1520s Spanish Conquest of Mexico told from the perspective of the indigenous Aztec people. It explores the social, religious, and psychological changes brought about by a historical process of colonization that both defined the American continent and is also highly reminiscent of today’s neocolonialism.
La otra conquista
1999
6
In a poor Estonian village, a group of peasants use magic and folk remedies to survive the winter, and a young woman tries to get a young man to love her.
November
2017
7