Ghosts and Witches of Olde England

The Fall of '55

In late 1955 and early 1956, the citizens of Boise, Idaho believed there was a menace in their midst. On Halloween, investigators arrested three men on charges of having sex with teenage boys. The investigators claimed the arrests were just the tip of the iceberg-they said hundreds of boys were being abused as part of a child sex ring. There was no such ring, but the result was a widespread investigation which some people consider a witch hunt. By the time the investigation ended, 16 men were charged. Countless other lives were also touched.In some cases, men implicated fled the area. At least one actually left the country. The investigation attracted attention in newspapers across the nation, including Time Magazine. The "Morals Drive" left scars which remain to this day.

The King's War on Witches

In the late 16th century Europe was in the grip of a ferocious witch hunt, where thousands were tortured and burnt at the stake. The church was fully behind this terrifying crusade against the imaginary enemies of Christianity. In France and Germany alone up to 40,000 people may have been killed as witches. But England and Scotland were almost untouched by witch persecutions until King James himself decided to launch his own, personal war on witchcraft.

Saving Africa's Witch Children

This shocking documentary reveals the plight of young Nigerians branded as witches.

The Hunting of the President

Previously unreleased material outlines the campaign against Bill Clinton's presidency, from his days in Arkansas up to his impeachment trial.

The Burning Times

This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.

Hexenkinder

The movie recalls children who suffered mental and physical harm both during the last century, particularly in religious orphanages, and during the time of early modernperiod witch-hunts. It shows that the mindsets and behavioural patterns of both time periods are more alike than one might think.

Sorcières : chronique d'un massacre

In 1609, Henry IV sent Inquisition judge Pierre de Lancre to the French Basque Country to investigate witchcraft. In the trials, 80 people were sentenced to death at the stake. Between the 15th and 17th centuries, a total of between 40,000 and 60,000 people fell victim to such waves of persecution in Europe. How can this phenomenon be explained?

Sorgina, banaiz

The massacre occurred 500 years ago. In 1525, the Spanish Royal Council ordered the execution of five members of a cult recently discovered in the Pyrenees. This event marked the beginning of a relentless, century-long prosecution against Basque witchcraft, which exhibited all the hallmarks of the great European witch hunts, including an unstable border between powerful nations, revolts against the lords, raging misogyny, confessions obtained under torture, and mass accusations. These past five centuries, only one account has been heard: that of the inquisitors and jurists, the same ones who invented the myth of flying witches who met with the devil at sabbats to plot their crimes.

À mort la sorcière

The film immerses us in the imaginary world of witchcraft crimes. This historical Swiss documentary reveals the workings of a hellish judicial machinery that put thousands of men, women and children at the stake.

Hexenjagd in Salem

Hexenwahn – Die Dokumentation

Witch Hunt: The Mechanics of Mass Hysteria

Between the end of the Middle Ages and the late 18th century, over 50,000 Europeans were persecuted, tortured and executed on charges of witchcraft. The pogrom was triggered by the book 'Malleus Maleficarum', published in 1486. Its detailed instructions for persecuting and annihilating alleged witches triggered a mass hysteria.

Akelarre

A small village in Navarre, Spain, XVII century. Garazi's grandmother is burned at the stake when accussed of being a witch and convicted by an inquisitor, something that brings Garazi under suspicion and eventually into prison, where she is atrociously tortured and humiliated.

Anna Goldin, the Last Witch

A native of Sennwald, Anna Göldi arrived in Glarus in 1765. For seventeen years, she worked as a maidservant for Johann Jakob Tschudi, a physician. Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi at first escaped arrest, but the authorities of the Canton of Glarus advertised a reward for her capture in the Zürcher Zeitung on February 9, 1782. Göldi was arrested and under torture, admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced on June 18, 1782 to execution by decapitation. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.

The Sound of a Stone

The dramatized story of a young high school teacher who is falsely accused of communist sympathies is used to demonstrate how baseless accusations can foster the spread of suspicion throughout a community, thus causing insidious and lasting damage.

Darkness Falls

A vengeful spirit has taken the form of the Tooth Fairy to exact vengeance on the town that lynched her 150 years earlier. Her only opposition is the only child, now grown up, who has survived her before.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Isolated bell-ringer Quasimodo wishes to leave Notre Dame tower against the wishes of Judge Claude Frollo, his stern guardian and Paris' strait-laced Minister of Justice. His first venture to the outside world finds him Esmeralda, a kind-hearted and fearless Romani woman who openly stands up to Frollo's tyranny.

Warlock

In 17th century New England, witch hunter Giles Redferne captures an evil warlock, but the conjurer eludes death with supernatural help. Flung into the future, the warlock winds up in the 1980s and plans to bring about the end of the world. Redferne follows the enchanter into the modern era and continues his mission, but runs into trouble in such unfamiliar surroundings. With the help of a young woman, can Redferne finally defeat the warlock?

Assassination Nation

After an anonymous hacker begins leaking the private data of thousands living in a small American town, the townspeople spiral into madness, with four high school seniors at the center of the maelstrom.

The Witches of Salem

Salem 1692. The young Abigail, seduced and abandoned by John Proctor, accuses John's wife of being a witch in revenge. A series of tragic trials soon befall Salem as fear and suspicion blur the lines of reality.