Cinema is a screen onto which we can project our fears, torments and the monstrosities of the world. The screen protects us from what we see, but cinema has also permanently anchored our nightmares around a few powerful images (empty houses, hostile attics and basements, demonic masks, bloodcurdling grimaces, disturbing postures). Throughout the summer, the Cinémathèque québécoise will be presenting a series of films encompassing more than one hundred and twenty years of horror, reminding us that what scares us most is to make the deepest of our fears tangible and credible.
A young priest is ordered to preside over the wake of witch in a small old wooden church of a remote village. This means spending three nights alone with the corpse with only his faith to protect him.
Georgi Kropachyov
Georgiy Kropachyov was born on April 15, 1930 in Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR. He graduated from the architectural department of the Leningrad Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (class of E. Levinson) in 1954, and from the director's department of the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors (class of L. Trauberg) in 1967.He was a production designer and set decorator, known for Hard to Be a God (2013), Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998) and Garpastum (2005). He died on March 29, 2016 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Constantin Erchov
Constantin Erchov was a film director, actor and screenwriter born on July 17, 1935 in Chelyabinsk, RSFSR and died on December 28, 1984 in Kiev. After studying at the Faculty of Philology of Kiev State University until 1958, he worked as a set designer and actor in various theaters in Kiev, including the Lessia Ukrainka Academic Theater of Dramatic Art and Comedy from 1960 to 1964. In 1967, he graduated from the higher training courses for directors and scriptwriters in Moscow. Since 1968 he has been the director of the Alexander Dovzhenko Studios in Kiev. At Mosfilm Studios, where he worked in 1966 and 1967, he directed with Georgi Kropachev the film Vij, which was seen by 32.6 million viewers in the year of its release. He was a member of the Union of Filmmakers of Ukraine.
