Folktale Movies

An exuberant story about Askeladden, the hero of Norwegian traditional fairy tales, outwitting the good-natured troll.

The story takes place in modern-day eastern Serbia, still fertile ground for various forms of superstition and prejudice. Zorica is a village girl who...

Firefly Marsh is a fog-enshrouded corner of the world, steeped in mystery. Stories of what lurks in the dark waters date back to Indian lore. But coul...

Osen, a dance teacher who hates men, refuses to become the concubine of a rich merchant, but falls in love with the thief Sojiro, unaware that he is a...

There's a "silver lining in every cloud" as Donald O'Neary turns every misfortune his two neighbours can engineer into gold coins. Against the backgro...

An old Hispanic folktale about a child-stealing witch becomes real in the life of a little girl who's caught between her parent's crumbling marriage a...

Two star-crossed lovers must battle the forces which try to keep them apart at different timelines and at different world's.

Short animated version of the Chinese folktale, Nüwa Mends the Heavens

A record in moving images of a timeless dimension, the tragedy takes place in a dark void where the voiceless ones enact their drama in a theatre of i...

Wanting to destroy the Archer and marry his wife, the King comes up with tests for the hero.

Classic kaidan ghost story set in the Edo period

Tom Davenport's realistic adaptation of an old Appalachian story. With nothing more than her plucky spirit and her pocket knife, a mountain girl outwi...

A stop-motion gothic folktale. A starving young boy eats a human toe that he finds in the ground. Later that night, something comes to his bedroom wan...

The 25 minute film tells the tale of an ailing elderly woman named Itako who encounters a fox named Okon. The story opens with Itako lying bedridden,...

The painter Kuwagata Keisai lived over 200 years ago. He created 'Ways to Sketch', a series of picture books illustrating humans and animals, all rich...

Ananse the Spider Man climbs up to the sky to buy stories from the Sky God in this folktale from Africa.

The breeze we feel everywhere is an ancient drunk man destroying everything as he goes by, until he was turned into the wind.

Ghost story based on a legendary Thai folk tale.

How Death Came to Earth is a 14 minute cutout animation film by Ishu Patel produced in 1971 by the National Film Board of Canada. The film deals with...

In the old days it was all murder and mayhem around Llanymawddwy as this renactment of an old legend shows but, never fear, peace now reigns.