A SPELL follows an unnamed character through three seemingly disparate moments in his life. With little explanation, we join him in the midst of a 15-person collective on a small Estonian island; in isolation in the majestic wilderness of Northern Finland; and during a concert as the singer and guitarist of a black metal band in Norway. Marked by loneliness, ecstatic beauty and an optimism of the darkest sort.
Starring musician Robert AA Lowe (best known for his intense live performances under the name LICHENS) in the lead role, A SPELL lies somewhere between fiction and non-fiction - it is at once a document of experience and an experience itself, an inquiry into transcendence that sees the cinema as a site for transformation.
"With its very title, A SPELL TO WARD OFF THE DARKNESS is a film that announces itself as being in league with forces not entirely of this world."—Michael Sicinski, Cinemascope
"A tapestry of beautifully rendered concepts...impressively committed to its poetic design."—Eric Kohn, Indiewire
"Elegantly artistic and engagingly challenging... It is a film that aims to challenge and provoke and succeeds on that score."—Mark Adams, Screen Daily
2014 Ambulante Documentary Film Festival
2014 International Film Festival Rotterdam
2014 DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival
2014 Glasgow Film Festival
2014 Göteborg International Film Festival
2014 !F Istanbul International Independent Film Festival
2014 New Directors/New Films MoMA
2014 Cinéma du Réel, Paris
2014 International House Philadelphia
2014 European Union Film Festival, Chicago
2014 Crossroads Film Festival – San Francisco
2014 Jeonju International Film Festival
2014 FICUNAM - Festival Internacional de Cine Unam
2014 Era New Horizon
2013 Festival del Film Locarno
2013 Toronto International Film Festival
2013 Vancouver International Film Festival
2013 Valdivia Festival Internacional de Ciné
2013 Festival du Nouveau Cinéma Montréal
2013 BFI London Film Festival
2013 Cork Film Festival
2013 Cinecity – The Brighton Film Festival
2013 Vienna International Film Festival
2013 Thessaloniki International Film Festival
2013 AFI FEST Los Angeles
2013 CPH : DOX
2013 Mar de Plata International Film Festival
2013 Torino International Film Festival, Best International Documentary
2013 Filmmaker Milan
2013 REC Festival Internacional de Cinema de Tarragona
2013 Madeira Micro International Film Festival