21 minutes of Macedonian villagers dancing with swords to scare demons away. Folk horror's wholesome cousin.
A testimony to the performance of ritual dances. Although they were performed only during the so-called “unbaptized days”, the 12 days between Christmas and Epiphany in the Orthodox Christianity, these dances are associated by some researchers with the Roman rosaries, the cult of the dead. Ritual clothing and the use of wooden swords to disperse the demons are important props in the dances that are believed to protect the folks from temptations and demons until they are baptized.
Cinematography
Crisp 1950s Yugoslav black-and-white that makes everything feel ancient
Practical Effects
Actual wooden swords wielded by actual villagers, zero choreography
Production
Blagoja Drnkov shot this like it was the last time anyone would see it
Director
Blagoja Drnkov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Rusalia rituals across the Balkans connect to Roman Rosalia festivals honoring the dead, suggesting these sword dances carry two millennia of layered belief systems.
Drnkov made this for the Yugoslav Film Archive's ethnographic unit, part of a desperate 1950s push to document customs before communist modernization erased them.
No ratings yet
Sign in to join the discussion — comments are spoiler-gated to your watch progress.
Discussion starters
YU
