Region of Castilla La Vieja, Spain, early 20th century. In Luján, a village ravaged by drought, Juan, a humble farmer who survives with his wife and son, confronts a local loan shark and is imprisoned as a result.

Carlos Amorales’ film La aldea maldita (The Cursed Village) (2017) narrates the story of a family of migrants who are lynched as they reach a strange town. In this fantastical village, a puppeteer manipulates the characters in a kind of shadow play that seems to be activated by musicians and actors. The film poses multiple political questions about justice, self-defense, politics and migration. Amorales’ visual vocabulary confronts us with these topics as he suggests that our vision of the world is shaped by pre-existing languages and social codes.

A story about poverty, honour and forgiving.

A pagan village, founded on the bones of both innocent and foul, is deeply rooted within the heart of an ancient Eden. When a balance of flesh and soil decays, the last surviving village elder battles madness and the macabre to save her people from not only themselves, but the monstrous judgement that burrows up from below.

When Prince Malachy returns to his father’s kingdom after the Crusades his first impression is that a bad harvest is the reason that the villagers are sick and hungry. But all is not as it seems and a stranger to the village, warns the new king that a dark force is the cause of their ills.

An author who was sent to the town Drakho, because of a nervous breakdown, gets wound up in a mystery revolving around demons and werewolves. She starts seeing ghosts and dismisses them as her own imagination, but when they turn out to be real she becomes suspicious of the odd town and of its past.