Devils' Land
Director Gisa Schleelein
Countries
Duration 90 min
Synopsis
The man sprouts pointy teeth, a hairy hide and sharp claws; the evil beast bursts forth. A man-eating monster – this is how today’s cinema portrays the werewolf, the bloody phantasm of an ancient legend. But for our ancestors the beast truly existed. Just as witches were persecuted, men were accused of being werewolves and of making pacts with the devil. Following the werewolf myth, the film travels through legendary Latvia and Estonia, where the werewolf still seems to roam today. Throughout the post-communist countryside we meet extraordinary people and discover relics of religious wars while gaining respect for the wolf. The journey interweaves a second narrative – the research of historians, trying to unearth the history of the myth. A sort of ‘mind map’ slowly begins to emerge.
The man sprouts pointy teeth, a hairy hide and sharp claws; the evil beast bursts forth. A man-eating monster – this is how today’s cinema portrays the werewolf, the bloody phantasm of an ancient legend. But for our ancestors the beast truly existed. Just as witches were persecuted, men were accused of being werewolves and of making pacts with the devil. Following the werewolf myth, the film travels through legendary Latvia and Estonia, where the werewolf still seems to roam today. Throughout the post-communist countryside we meet extraordinary people and discover relics of religious wars while gaining respect for the wolf. The journey interweaves a second narrative – the research of historians, trying to unearth the history of the myth. A sort of ‘mind map’ slowly begins to emerge.