Hagazussa - The Witch's Curse

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Movie
Original title Hagazussa - The Witch's Curse
Country of production Germany , Austria
original language German
Publishing year 2017
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Lukas Feigelfeld
script Lukas Feigelfeld
production Ben Gibson
Simon Lubinski
Lukas Feigelfeld
camera Mariel Baqueiro
cut Jörg Volkmar
occupation

Hagazussa - Der Hexenfluch , also Hagazussa - A Heathen's Curse , is a German - Austrian feature film from 2017 by the Austrian director and screenwriter Lukas Feigelfeld. The premiere took place in September 2017 at the Fantastic Film Fest in Austin , Texas , the German premiere in January 2018 at the Max Ophüls Preis film festival . The film was released in Germany on May 17, 2018. It was first broadcast on 3sat on February 15, 2020.

action

In the 15th century, the ten-year-old goatherd Albrun lived with her mother in a remote mountain hut in the Austrian Alps . After the mother dies, she is on her own. Twenty years later Albrun is a mother himself, there is no trace of his father. She is marginalized from the village community; she only goes to the village to sell her milk at the market or to exchange it for other food. She is called a witch .

One day Albrun is asked by the local pastor to come and see her. He has an unusual present for her: he receives her dead mother's skull, which she takes back to her hut. Albrun begins to perceive eerie noises around her, among other things she hears the calls of her deceased mother at night and is increasingly haunted by disturbing visions. Slowly she begins to believe herself to be a witch, in the dark woods she is gradually threatening to lose her mind.

Production and Background

Hagazussa is Old High German for witch (see etymology ).

The film was produced by the German Film and Television Academy Berlin and Retina Fabrik Filmproduktion. The film is Feigelfeld's graduation film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. Niklas Kammertöns, Sven Mühlender and Daniel Pinzer were responsible for the sound, Katrin Wolfermann for the costume design, Dana Duman for the production design and Claus Grüßner and Janina Kuhlmann for the mask. The music comes from the Greek duo MMMD .

The work on the film from the first idea to the finished film took four years, the shooting had to be interrupted for a year for budget reasons without the support of German or Austrian film funding, and the financing was achieved through a crowdfunding campaign. Some of the filming took place near Lake Wolfgang .

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in August 2018, and was included in Netflix 's range in May 2019 .

reception

The film has been compared in several reviews to The Witch (2015) by Robert Eggers .

Hannah Pilarczyk described Hagazussa on SPIEGEL Online as a “visually stunning film”, Oliver Armknecht as “the most atmospherically strong in recent years. But also one of the bulkiest: You have to do without a conventional story or a lot of plot, the paranoid-eerie mood is the focus. "

Christopher Diekhaus judged the film similarly as a "minimalist show piece that comes across as astonishingly stylish". The film would draw its horror not from clumsy shock effects, but from the inhuman conditions in which Albrun and her mother live. With his decelerated narrative style and his hypnotic, enigmatic impressions, Feigelfeld would trust the power of images and sound.

Awards and nominations (selection)

Diagonal 2018

  • Award in the category Best Image Creation Feature Film (Mariel Baqueiro)
  • Award in the category Best Sound Design Feature Film (Niklas Kammertöns)

First Steps 2018

  • Award in the full-length feature film category (Lukas Feigelfeld)
  • Michael Ballhaus Prize (Mariel Baqueiro)

German Film Critics' Prize 2018

  • Award in the Best Camera category
  • Nomination in the category Best Feature Film Debut

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Hagazussa - The Hexenfluch . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 178887 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ a b c Hagazussa - The Witches Curse. In: filmportal.de . Deutsches Filminstitut , accessed on May 18, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Hagazussa - The Witch's Curse. In: 3sat.de. Retrieved February 12, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c filmstarts.de: Hagazussa - The Hexenfluch . Retrieved May 18, 2018.
  5. ↑ Arthaus horror: Hagazussa - The Witches Curse . Zitty , May 15, 2018 article, accessed May 18, 2018.
  6. ↑ diepresse.com: Hexenwald hallucinations in the deep Salzkammergut . Article dated June 7, 2018, accessed June 7, 2018.
  7. ↑ New to Netflix: One of the best horror films of the last few years! . Article dated May 17, 2019, accessed May 17, 2019.
  8. ↑ a b SPIEGEL Online: Big Horror Debut: Playing Unsure . Article dated May 18, 2018, accessed May 18, 2018.
  9. ↑ a b film-rezensions.de: Hagazussa - The Hexenfluch . Article dated September 26, 2017, accessed May 19, 2018.
  10. ↑ a b Heilbronn Voice: Fatal Exclusion ( Memento from May 18, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). Article dated May 8, 2018, accessed May 19, 2018.
  11. ↑ Diagonale: Previous winners . Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  12. ↑ First Steps Awards 2018 . Article dated September 24, 2018, accessed September 25, 2018.
  13. ↑ The nominations for the German Film Critics Prize 2018 have been confirmed . Article dated January 23, 2019, accessed January 23, 2019.
  14. ^ Prize of the German Film Critics - The Winners 2018 . Article of February 11, 2019, accessed February 13, 2019.