OPTION 1:

In this modality, the proposals of the Communications will follow the main thematic line of the new edition of the Congress and the Festival: Folk Horror.

Folk Horror is based on the transmission of the terrifying through folklore, mythology, legends and superstitions. A peculiar derivation of the terrifying and the fantastic, whose origins go back to literature, folk tales, etc. at the end of the 19th century, which, later and with their particular aesthetics, would hatch in the various world cinematographies from the sixties and seventies onwards. This cinema, crossed by the supernatural ingredient and its concomitances with witchcraft, neo-pagan movements (such as Wicca), the hippie counterculture, the legacy of occultists such as Aleister Crowley or Austin Osman Spare, or the fear of all these cults and sects, will result in the reappearance of ancestral beliefs that will permeate the different cultural and artistic models up to the present day.

This sub-genre of the fantastic in general, and of horror in particular, is based on three foundational British feature films known as the Unholy Trinity: Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968), Blood on Satan’s Claw (Piers Haggard, 1971) and The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973). With these titles, and inescapable earlier references such as Häxan (Benjamin Christensen, 1922), Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957) or Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar Bergman, 1968), the necessary breeding ground was forged for the consolidation of these fictions where the presence of natural and wild spaces, the isolation of the characters, the adoption of beliefs and superstitions, or the culmination of the whole narrative in some kind of invocation, ceremony or transforming ritual are frequent.

Folk Horror also tends to reflect an aesthetic and narrative constant: civilization or progress vs. other ways of understanding the world based on the archaic, the “traditional” or under the margins of the law. This aspect, together with the aforementioned, will be inoculated in the future cultural and artistic content, which will lead to the spread of Folk Horror beyond Britain’s borders over the next few decades, being reinterpreted in each country according to its own political and socio-cultural reality. From the Australian Outback Films or Japanese ghost stories, to the stereotype of “Deep America”. In the latter case, for example, under less supernatural aspects and delving into the conflict between the two Americas through the clichés of the White Trash, thanks to titles such as Deliverance (John Boorman, 1972), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) or The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977).

As is well known, Folk Horror has also reached our times through its different models of expression and coexisting with other sub-genres (such as Survival Horror or Slasher): from video games (The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, Through the Woods, etc.) or literary authors (H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Adam Nevil, etc.), to flooding the world of comics (Alan Moore, Scott Snyder, Emily Carroll, etc.), plastic arts (Sara Deck, Tomás Hijo, Audrey Benjaminsen, etc.) or new television productions (Dennis Kelly and Felix Barrett) and films. The latter, offering new perspectives, concerns and anxieties around this way of understanding the world from the pagan, the telluric roots, the ancestral, otherness or barbarism, and thanks to filmmakers such as Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers, A Field in England), Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary), Emma Tammi (The Wind), M. Night Shyamalan (The Village), Robert Eggers (The Witch), Alex Garland (Men) or Ti West (X, Pearl), among many others.

Within its broad spectrum, abstracts submitted for this main thematic line may contain variations such as the following:

1) Research and theoretical reflection on folklore, mythology and popular narration (tales, legends, songs, etc.) connected with the fantastic or with the fictions of Folk Horror in its various forms of expression: studies, currents, movements, works and outstanding authors.

2) The concept and derivations of folklore and Folk Horror, and their link with the various models of audiovisual culture and new technologies: their interweaving in cinema, television series, comics, video games, virtual reality, theatre, plastic arts, etc.

3) The research and theoretical reflection on the development and evolution of folklore and Folk Horror in the different cultural and technological models, and from the perspective of the study of currents (works, outstanding authors, etc.) and variants on which to establish this relationship.

4) Folklore and Folk Horror as a tool for communication, reflection or social and political analysis through audiovisual fiction and the fantastic.