settima

werewolves

Лісова пісня. Мавка [Lisova pisnya. Mavka / A Story of the Forest: Mavka] (Yuri Ilyenko, 1981)

Jun

7

National Trails Day

Лісова пісня. Мавка (1981)

Mavka (Lyudmila Efimenko) and the Spirit of the Forest (Boris Khmelnitskiy). DP: Yuri Ilyenko.

A movie that takes place in nature for National Trails Day (USA)

 

Mavka, a forest nymph, falls in love with mortal Lukash, who in his turn is punished by the Spirit of the Forest for marrying another mortal instead. Curse upon curse, Lukash is turned into a wolf, and Mavka into a weeping willow.

 

The colours, mood and impact of the four seasons on mortal and sprite alike is there, not only made visible by Ilyenko's ethereal, spiralling camera, but somewhere blooming deep inside us, observing.

Libahunt [Лесная легенда / Werewolf] (Leida Laius, 1968)

Jan

13

soup

Libahunt (1968)

A dinner table shown from above. Several people, we mainly see their hands and wooden spoons, eat from a hand-carved bowl. DP: Algimantas Mockus.

Libahunt [Лесная легенда / Werewolf] (Leida Laius, 1968)

Jan

13

wolf moon

Libahunt (1968)

Tiina (Ene Rämmeld) walking through the forest. DP: Algimantas Mockus.

Wolves for Wolf Moon, the first full moon after Yule.

 

In Livonia, which covers modern day Estonia, the 17th century was when the werewolf trials reigned.

“Better to be with wolves in the forest, than with people like you!”

Tiina, a young liberated woman taken in by a family of farmers after her mother was put on trial for witchcraft, is accused of hunting with the wolves as a werewolf by her half-sister with whom she shares a lover.