Les Sorcières d’Akelarre

This film is as essential as Aspirin is for toothache, or a compass to navigate the Atlantic in a storm!

Pablo Agüero, an Argentinian director based in France, chose to sharpen his sword by looking into the Inquisition in the Basque Country, at the height of the witch-hunt era along with the intolerance to female freedom. It is the most awarded film in Spain in 2021 (five Goya !), a cinematographic gem and a liberating cry in this period of resurgence of Talibans and fundamental religious belief.
Pablo Agüero and co-writer Katell Guillou, were accompanied at Le Groupe Ouest as participants of the Annual Selection, supervised that year by Marcel Beaulieu and Yann Apperry, and also the Cross Channel Film Lab. They both took part in LA SÉLECTION, an annual event co-created by Le Groupe Ouest & the Gan Foundation for Cinema.
“The Witches of Akelarre” was produced by the fabulous Tita B team, a production company based in Douarnenez, at the tip of the Finistère (Brittany).

Synopsis

Basque Country, 1609. The men of the region are at sea. Ana joins other girls from the village to dance in the woods. Judge Rostegui, given the task of purifying the region by the King, arrests the women and accuses them of witchcraft. He decides to do what it takes for them to confess what they know about the akelarre, a ceremony with magical connotations during which the Devil is said to initiate his servants and mate with them.

Pablo Agüero during a test shooting in Kerlouan (Finistère) in the framework of the Cross Channel Film Lab in 2014 | © Brigitte Bouillot

Intentions – Pablo Agüero

This feature film is based on the true story of Pierre de Lancre, an important judge at the Bordeaux parliament, scholar, layman, and Montaigne’s brother-in-law. In 1609, de Lancre was sent by Henry IV to the Basque Country to investigate cases of witchcraft. There he discovers an untamed region, the last bastion of resistance to evangelisation and centralisation. Everyone is master of his own house. Women occupy a central place in society, living alone for half the year, while their men leave to trade in the New World.

Thinking he is dealing with a witches’ conspiracy, de Lancre tries to unearth all the secrets of their Sabbath, the nocturnal celebrations where the devil recruits his accomplices and mates with them. It becomes an obsession. During the trials, he forces his young, beautiful and rebellious defendants to act out this imaginary rite for him. This Sabbath is a condensation of the fantasies and taboos of civilised man : femininity, night, the forest, fire, animality, sacrilege, abortion, uncontrollable youth… and above all polymorphous and unbridled sex, the symbol of an insatiable and destructive feminine Eros, whose pleasure is both fascinating and frightening.