Dark Star Pictures Buys Cypriot Horror Motherwitch for North America
Los Angeles-based Dark Star Pictures has acquired North American rights to Motherwitch, a Cyprus-set horror film, Deadline reported. North American rights means the licence to release a film in the United States, Canada and nearby territories, in cinemas and on home platforms.
Set on the island of Cyprus in 1882, the story centres on Eleni, an outcast painter. Her three children die in a freak accident. She turns to ancient rituals to bring them back. The plan fails, and she summons the Kalikantzari, creatures from folklore.
Motherwitch is the third feature from Minos Papas, a U.S.-based Greek-Cypriot director and cinematographer. His earlier features were Shuttering in 2009 and Behind the Mirror in 2015. The new film was lead-produced by Nicosia-based Caretta Films, which organised the Cyprus shoot.
It was filmed on location in a remote, uninhabited 15th-century village in Cyprus. It is a co-production with the Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus. Support also came from the Republic of Cyprus through its Invest In Cyprus incentive and from the Film Agency of North Macedonia.
The North American deal was brokered by Arnaud Chevalier for B-Rated International Sales, a Paris-based sales boutique that licences films to distributors territory by territory. The same sales organisation has also placed the film with Velvet Spoon in Poland and with Shadowz for France and Spain.
Festivals have driven its rollout. Motherwitch world premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and has since played in more than 20 festivals. It screens in the Noves Visions section of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia. It also received a gala screening in Nicosia ahead of its theatrical release in Cyprus at the end of October.
Sitges lists Motherwitch as a 2026 Cypriot folk horror film, Sitges notes. Its synopsis describes Eleni as an immigrant painter living in a village under British occupation. That detail fits the film's 19th-century setting.
What makes this stand out is the production base. Few horror films are rooted in Cypriot folklore and shot inside an abandoned historic village. For audiences in North America, it means a ghost story from a place rarely seen on their screens.
