HÄXAN - A3 ART PRINT

In the early decades of the 20th century, amongst the shelves of a Berlin bookshop, Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen stumbled upon a copy of the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th century treatise on witchcraft and demonology written by the maniacal witch-hunter Heinrich Kramer. The discovery spawned a two-year period of studying witchcraft and old witch-hunting manuals, after which Christensen would be inspired to create a film he would call Häxan, ‘the witch’.

A bewitching mix of fact and fiction, drama and documentary, Häxan is one of the most captivating things you’ll ever see. It’s surreal and otherworldly but also frighteningly real and raw. One of the stories from the set comes from Christensen, who said that actress Maren Pedersen, between takes, "raised her tired face to me and said: 'The devil is real. I have seen him sitting by my bedside.'”

The film holds up as an incredibly powerful watch, but it’s also a fascinating insight into cultural attitudes towards witchcraft. The intensity of it is in no small part down to the fact that it is based on real historical injustices and brutality. This film might have fantastical and hallucinatory elements, but it gnaws at something very real.

Bunty created this poster for a screening of the film we hosted at Moorforge Folk Festival in summer 2024. We got extras printed so that we could also put it online and share it with more fans of this incredible film.

Printed on 350gsm heavyweight recycled card stock.