Skip to main content
Realm of Satan film image; person wearing red goat head mask stands in doorway of brick building

Realm of Satan

Spectrum

This event has passed

Canadian Premiere

“This is the age of Satan! Satan rules the Earth!” Scott Cummings’ film proclaims before opening on the live birth of a baby goat that is later breast-fed by a hooded woman in a dark barn. Should that sound shocking, Realm of Satan is actually a humanizing portrait of the modern Satanist; less a traditional documentary and more of a non-didactic series of composed vignettes depicting rituals that range from the macabre to the mundane: A man paints his face in the kitchen while his wife dries the dishes… A magician prepares a performance… A BDSM orgy… Satanic karaoke.

Anton Levay wrote in The Satanic Bible, “The real Satanist is not quite so easily recognized as such.” Cummings shows this to be true, contrasting prosaic day-to-day lives of quiet domesticity with dark, disturbing rituals practiced by night. Realm of Satan is an experiential film that peeks behind the veil of Levayan Satanism and invites us to draw our own conclusions about its congregation.

 

Community Partner

Director
Featuring

High Priest Peter H. Gilmore, High Priestess Peggy Nadramia, Magistra Templi Rex Blanche Barton

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

2024

Language

In English, German, Spanish, Swedish with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
18+

At The Cinematheque and International Village

19+

At The Rio

79 min
Documentary Experimental & Avant Garde Horror & Thriller
Asterlight

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Joe Poletto, Sam Roseme, Cathy Tankosic

Producer

Caitlin Mae Burke, Pacho Velez, Molly Gandour

Screenwriter

Scott Cummings

Cinematography

Gerald Kerkletz

Editor

Scott Cummings

Production Design

Joseph Dudley

Original Music

Steve Everitt

Scott Cummings headshot; Realm of Satan director

Scott Cummings

Scott Cummings is a New York-based filmmaker and editor whose work has screened at MOMA, Centre Pompidou, Visions du Réel, IFF Rotterdam, and CPH: DOX. His 2014 medium-length film Buffalo Juggalos won AFI Fest’s Grand Jury Prize and Cinema Eye Honors for Outstanding Achievement in Short Nonfiction Filmmaking. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film”, Cummings’ 2017 documentary Adversary, produced by Field of Vision, won Best Documentary at the Dallas International Film Festival and was a Vimeo Staff Pick. He has edited films such as Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Wendy. His 2024 feature debut, Realm of Satan, received support from Sundance Institute’s Art of Nonfiction and Rooftop Films.

Missing VIFF? Check Out What's Playing at the VIFF Centre

La Bola Negra
La Bola Negra film image; man playing a trumpet

La Bola Negra

Dir. Javier Ambrossi, Javier Calvo
155 min

A big, old-school historical melodrama gets a thrillingly modern, queer makeover from Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who artfully juggle three gay protagonists across stories set in 1932, 1937, and 2017. Winner: Best Director, Cannes. Screening on 35mm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

The 39 Steps

Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
86 min

In our new film studies series, FRAMEWORK, film scholar Michael van den Bos explores the work of Alfred Hitchcock, across four monochrome masterworks. This week: The 39 Steps (1935), a witty and fast-moving spy thriller from Hitchcock's English period.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Great McGinty

Dir. Preston Sturges
82 min

Preston Sturges' first film as writer-director is an omnivorous satire on endemic political corruption, the tale of a tramp who gets his entry into politics by casting 37 votes for mayor at $2 a pop. Eventually he'll be on the ticket himself...

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

To Be Or Not To Be

Dir. Ernst Lubitsch
99 min

Strange but true: one of the greatest comedies of Hollywood's golden era was inspired by Hitler's annexation of Poland in 1938. Jack Benny is the renowned theatre actor whose performance of Hamlet is interrupted by the Germans.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
The History of Concrete
The History of Concrete film image; man smoothing just-poured concrete sidewalk

The History of Concrete

Dir. John Wilson
101 min

After attending a workshop on pitching saccharine Hallmark movies, John Wilson tries to apply all the same best practices to his documentary about concrete. Frequently absurd and endlessly entertaining detours, asides, and digressions ensue.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
More info

Sold Out

The Mad Dog of Europe

Dir. Rubika Shah
83 min

The story of an unmade screenplay from the writer of Citizen Kane. In 1932, Herman Mankiewicz wrote a film that foretold the persecution of the Jews and the war in Europe. But Hollywood wouldn't take the risk and The Mad Dog of Europe was never made.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre