The Initiated

A young girl Abigail lives in a city whose borders were closed many years ago because of an epidemic of a mysterious disease. Abby's father was one of the sick - and he was taken when she was six years old. Going against the authorities to find his father, Abby learns that her city is actually full of magic. And she discovers in herself extraordinary magical abilities.

A three-year-old boy disappears during his mother's high school reunion. Nine years later, by chance, he turns up in the town in which the family has just relocated.

A mysterious Dark Horseman slays young girls near the village of Dikanka, and he has already butchered 11 ladies. Nikolai Gogol, a scribe from Saint Petersburg has to take charge of the investigation, but the closer he gets to solving the case, the more fits he has, causing macabre visions. When he learns the next victim is his beloved, Liza, he doubts that he can protect her and resist the murderer. Fortunately, he meets somebody who can help him: Khoma Brut, the witch hunter, martial artist and philosopher. Together they spend three dreadful nights in an old chapel reading the funeral service for Ulyana, the witch, and calling upon the ghastly evil spirit Viy.

After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.

Unable to process the death of his daughter, Detective Boyd embarks on a hunt for a serial killer who murders according to a brutal tribal ritual: Muti. The only person who can help Boyd is Professor Mackles, an anthropologist who hides an unspeakable secret. The line between sanity and madness thins as Boyd goes deeper into the killer’s world.

A woman lives in a small village in Russia. One day she receives the parcel she sent to her husband, serving a sentence in prison. Confused and angered, she sets out to find why her package was returned to sender.

Early 18th century. Cartographer Jonathan Green undertakes a scientific voyage from Europe to the East. Having passed through Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains, he finds himself in a small village lost in impassible woods. Nothing but chance and heavy fog could bring him to this cursed place. People who live here do not resemble any other people which the traveler saw before that. The villagers, having dug a deep moat to fend themselves from the rest of the world, share a naive belief that they could save themselves from evil, failing to understand that evil has made its nest in their souls and is waiting for an opportunity to gush out upon the world.

As bombs fall on London, writer Agatha Christie decides it is time to kill off her most famous creation.

A young woman with psychokinetic powers breaks out of a Louisiana asylum and makes her way to New Orleans, where she falls into the city’s netherworld of misfits and miscreants.

Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set out to solve the mystery, make new friends, and establish their place in the community

A mother and her teenage daughter must confront Death when it arrives in the form of an astonishing talking bird.

After a carnival troupe saves his life, a man agrees to help its immortal leader collect five souls and win a bet with the devil.

A mysterious woman comes in to town and inhabits the local haunted mansion, making everyone wonder if she's a witch or "The Grey Lady".

Waking up in an unfamiliar city, a man with no memory must confront the mysteries of his own identity. However, his desperate search to uncover the past pits him against a powerful enemy, leading to a showdown that ultimately reveals the truth.

Mystery Inc. has cracked the case to top all cases! They’ve tracked down Coco Diablo, the head of a notorious costume crime syndicate. With Coco and her kitty in prison, Mystery Inc. thinks that they can finally enjoy a break. Wrong! Suddenly, menacing doppelgänger ghosts of the Scooby crew and favorite classic foes show up in Coolsville to threaten Halloween. Now it’s up to the meddling kids to unmask the latest scoundrel and save Halloween!

When a teenaged girl moves to England, with her brothers and parents into the ancient Canterville Hall, she's not at all happy. Especially as there's a ghost and a mysterious re-appearing bloodstain on the hearth. She campaigns to go back home, and her dad, believing the ghost's pranks are Ginny's, is ready to send her back. But then Ginny actually meets the elusive 17th-century Sir Simon de Canterville (not to mention the cute teenaged duke next door), and she sets her hand to the task of freeing Sir Simon from his curse.

A 9 year old boy experiences God's power in a supernatural way.

A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

A young woman returns a lonely widow’s lost purse, leading to an unlikely relationship between the two — until the young woman discovers the widow might not be all that she seems.

The drama based on hidden implicit faith in miracle unfolds between the members of the family with an unhappy love story of a desolate teenage girl who tries to withstand this family madness after their devotee grandmother came to their flat from upcountry.

In the Flemish countryside, Hadewijch of Brabant experiences a transcendent vision of God.

El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man.

Nina, an art dealer, has her weekly massage appointment and is surprised to find out her usual masseur, Douglas, has sent a replacement named Fitch. The pair develop an easy rapport during the session, with talk about past relationships. As Nina lies topless on the massage table, Fitch also takes time to explain various massage techniques, including those used by Hopi medicine men.

Deemo is a lonely individual who lives in solitude, playing the piano in a castle. One day, a girl who has lost her memory falls from the sky. Wanting to help her recover her memories and return to her world, Deemo discovers that a tree kept atop the piano will grow whenever the piano is played.

Two lost souls with incongruent world views meet again and again under strange circumstances, and it will gradually become clear that they are connected by some force that is bigger than they can fathom.

A journalist returns to a dark, virtually unrecognizable Athens to investigate his best friend's murder. The victim's girlfriend gives him a hand but they soon realize they either have to abandon their investigation or become cogs in a powerful machine. Marionettes is a story of mystery, shot in an unknown, dark and full of temptations Athens.

In a leafy forest, a Galician sovereign who longs to attain wisdom meets a sorcerer, who tells him: “Go back to your country and study the Earth and the Stars in the sky; anywhere in the world reflects an image of it. You will ride on this arrow, which you must keep for a hundred years and a day. After this time, stick it in the widest valley of all those you possess, with the tip facing the sky. Then the Moon will come and, just as it exerts its action on the waters of the sea, it will act on the arrow, turning it into a holy mountain." - Legend about the Pico Sacro Inspired by Hokusai's views of Mount Fuji and Cézanne's paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, "Pico Sacro [The Holy Mountain]" aims to reveal the mystery and the magic that underlie reality.

Secrets of a Soul: Margarethe, Creator of bizarre sculptures! Night club dancer? Mad woman? Victim of an occult conspiracy?! Dark menaces steal her soul and organs. Though dead they keep her alive...

The cosmos of the incurable Margarethe. Her journey through the mysteries of the Egyptian underworld. Will she be coming forth by day? Film in two parts by Carsten Frank.

Abby is a pregnant woman with a curious new boarder in the apartment over her garage. Turns out he's heaven-sent and is speeding along the Apocalypse by bloodying rivers, egging on plagues and following scripture word for word.

In the bourgeois circles of Europe after the Great War, can anything save the modern man? Harry Haller, a solitary intellectual, has all his life feared his dual nature of being human and being a beast. He's decided to die on his 50th birthday, which is soon. He's rescued from his solipsism by the mysterious Hermine, who takes him dancing, introduces him to jazz and to the beautiful and whimsical Maria, and guides him into the hallucinations of the Magic Theater, which seem to take him into Hell. Can humour, sin, and derision lead to salvation?

Going on a business trip, the hero of the film suddenly finds himself in a fantastic city. It is very similar to our world, only the hidden absurdity of everyday life here has become apparent.

Kurt Ingston, a rich recluse, invites the doctors who left him a hopeless cripple to his desolate mansion in the swamps as one by one they meet horrible deaths.

An old farmer struggles to take care of his rundown farm alone, when a stranger appears and uninvited begins to help him.

The birth, life and death of a boy named Adam.

Two enigmatic women, both with a hidden but shared motive, separately arrive in Paris. As they navigate the city and their search progresses, various characters become entangled within their conflict, one which increasingly comes to take a fantastical turn. These characters too, driven by their own desires, strive for their own goals in the fight. From a Paris, drenched in an otherworldly ambiance, a tale of desire and power emerges through mystery.

In 1902, a Gullah family on the Sea Islands off South Carolina decide whether to migrate to the mainland, risking their unique cultural heritage.

This mythic love story set in a timeless, lavishly colorful and mystical Jerusalem incorporates hard rock, striking set design, computer-generated imagery and modern-day tensions between the secular and the Orthodox worlds. Hanan, a handsome young traveler - who has pierced ears and wears grungy flannel shirts - falls in love with Lea, the beautiful daughter of a leader in the religious community. Unbeknownst to the couple, a deal was struck, years earlier, in which they were promised to each other by their fathers. When Hanan consults with a master of Kabbala, a set of mysteriously forbidden eleventh-century texts unleashes untold powers, merging the erotic with the divine and affirming love's infinite potential to transcend all obstacles. The lovers are played by Yehezkel Lazarov (Waltz with Bashir) and Ayelet Z'urer (Angels & Demons; Vantage Point). (from sfjff.org)

The story of corrupt, power-hungry, manipulative Grigori Rasputin's influence on members of the Russian Imperial family and others, and what resulted.