ERREMENTARI

Sure, we all have our demons to contend with but Patxi, a blacksmith in a Basque village in the early 19th century, has quite a special demon. For years, he’s been fighting off a low-level devil to whom he once pledged his soul and who wants to present him with a one-way ticket to hell. In order to buy time, Patxi has locked up the horned creature in his smithy, which is as dark as night and as hot as a furnace. The pious and superstitious village where he lives shuns the smith as if he were a leper, but then Usue enters the scene. As the young daughter of a woman who killed herself, she too is being snubbed by the closed community. Usue becomes the bone of contention between the smith, the demon, and the villagers. Maybe she will succeed in keeping the gates of hell closed for just a while longer… A horror story in the Basque country and spoken in Euskera (the Basque language), that’s something we don’t get to see every day. This production by BIFFF regulars Álex de la Iglesia and Carolina Bang is the first full-fledged film by writer-director Paul Urkijo Alijo. His Errementari (“blacksmith”) is an entertaining mix of gothic horror, folklore, and satanic shenanigans told with a great sense of style.