<div><strong><em>“The old religion is not a belief, but a remembrance – of the dance of the sun, the breath of the earth, and the song of the ancestors.” – Unknown</em></strong>
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<div><strong><em>About me:</em></strong>
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<div>I (Katharina Louise) have spent the past years researching, gathering and synthesizing the surviving remnants of Europes pagan past. After sharing my inquiry in an embodied approach with groups in courses and different offerings, I now want to finally bring this research into an audio-visual form that captures the present embodiment of that legacy.
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<div>To mitigate the myth that Europe doesn't or didn't possess indigeneity, to reveal and reinforce the magic at our roots.
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<div>Apart from going down these research rabbit holes and offering land-based holistic practices, I have gathered experience over the past 12 years working in film production, video editing and directing and filming my own small-scale documentary projects. With this fundraiser I am asking you for support to fuse my different disciplines into the launch of an audio-visual archive of stories of the so-called <em>"old ways".</em>
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<div><strong><em>What are these exact funds going towards:</em></strong>
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<div>These funds will make the first phase of the documentary possible, allowing me and dear companions (who will help with sound) to travel to Ireland during the Equinox to film their Swan dance ritual and to Lithuania for the summer solstice celebrations to capture these remaining (and alive!) pagan traditions. They will cover travel, accommodation, local transport, and meals, equipment and materials needed to record high-quality footage, as well as production and editing time. This first phase will allow me to create a short trailer and sample footage, which is essential for sharing the project with audiences and applying for larger funding to continue filming and completing the documentary.
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<div>(you find an exact price breakdown at the bottom of this text)
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<div><strong><em>Motivation &amp; Background:</em></strong>
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<div>As we navigate times in which crises are multiplying and our Western governments and religious institutions are failing to provide the answers and changes we are desperately needing, there has been a rise of interest in intact spiritual teachings from the Buddhist, Hindu, or Indigenous lineages of the world to provide guidance through our collective and individual growing pains. As we are encouraged, amidst a globalized world, to travel far away to seek answers, and as individualism tempts our egos to appropriate other cultures to feel like we belong, this project is an attempt to shift our focus toward our own roots (speaking from a European perspective) and the troubles and blessings that breathe through them. To deconstruct the myth of Western “civilization,” we must remember our own heritage of dancing with monsters, listening to plants and animals, and singing to mountains.
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<div>Since I can remember, I have asked the question:
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<div>“How did we get into this mess of separation?”
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<div>Over time, I kept digging deeper and deeper, and I began to see how so many threads of recent history lead back to the colonization and homogenization of Europe—first through the Roman Empire and later through the Christian Church.
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<div>Capitalism, imperialism, colonization, and patriarchy did not simply appear out of nowhere; they are the maintained result of a thousand-year-long campaign against earth-centered animist practices and the people who carried them.
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<div>Step by step, we can see how the rise of patriarchy is closely intertwined with the suppression of shamanic practices and earth-centered living. The transition from communal land management to individual ownership was also a significant disruption in the relationship between Earth and people, the consequences of which are felt more dramatically than ever today.
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<div>Through the growth of state authority and organized patriarchal religion, Europe was gradually transformed from local, egalitarian, nature-worshipping communities into a homogenized “Roman Empire” governed by new legal systems, the imposition of certain dominant languages, and a top-down philosophy. At the very bottom of this hierarchy were women and the land, both subjected to commodification in various forms. The cost of this long campaign against pagan people was the death of tens of thousands — possibly more — the majority of them women.
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<div>Alongside these lives lost, Europe also lost the culmination of thousands of years of orally transmitted traditions: working in harmony with the forces of nature, medicinal herbal knowledge, folk healing techniques, ancient songs and dances of relationality with the land, and the intricate protocols of seasonal rites.
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<div>The intention of this project is to follow the threads of where “the old ways” can still be felt and where they may have never fully disappeared. Because even if the patriarchal campaign against folk ways was very effective, certain people and places were too ingrained with love for these communal rituals to fully give them up. Along with the waning grip of the Christian Church on the cultural evolution of Europe, there has been a re-igniting of ancestral memory: curiosity, searching, reclaiming —
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<div>maybe even a courting of the wild ones who howl, heal, and hallow.
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<div>In a time when everything feels increasingly uprooted, I believe it is of utmost importance to retrieve and re-center the remaining animist traditions of Europe — to meet the obscurity of modernity with remembrance. With white supremacy, imperialism, and capitalist colonialism at the root of today’s crises, I want to turn toward the deeper root of separation itself: to remember that we, too, descend from people who once lived in reciprocity and balance with all of life.
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<div><strong><em>Cost Breakdown: </em></strong>
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<div>Ireland – Equinox (6–8 days)
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<div>Flights (2 people): 650 €
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<div>Rental car (6 days, including fuel &amp; insurance): 450 €
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<div>Accommodation (friends + Airbnb/hostel): 350 €
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<div>Meals &amp; local expenses: 250 €
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<div>Reserve/flexibility: 300 €
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<div>Subtotal Ireland: 2,000–2,200 €
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<div>Lithuania - Summer Solstice (4-5 days)
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<div>Travel (train or car): 300 €
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<div>Accommodation (6 nights, 2 people): 400 €
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<div>Meals &amp; local expenses: 150 €
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<div>Subtotal Lithuania: 850 €
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<div>Equipment &amp; Materials
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<div>SD cards, batteries, hard drive: 200 €
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<div>Cables, windshields, other small gear: 50 €
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<div>Subtotal Equipment: 250 €
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<div>Post-production &amp; Labor
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<div>Editing, color correction, sound work: 1,500 €
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<div>Organization, project management: 500 €
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<div>Subtotal Post-production: 2,000 €
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<div>Fees &amp; Contingency
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<div>GoFundMe transaction fees (~3%): 150 €
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<div>Miscellaneous / small unforeseen costs: 100 €
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<div>Subtotal Fees &amp; Contingency: 250 €
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<div><strong>Total: 5,500 €</strong>
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<div><strong><em>Other planned destinations for the next phase of the doc:</em></strong>
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<div>Following the first journeys to Ireland and Lithuania the project will continue tracing Europe’s living pagan heritage across several regions:
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<div>In Southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, the focus lies on the wild winter processions of the Perchta and the 12 Holy Nights (Rauhnächte), remnants of ancestral and fertility rites where the boundaries between human, animal, and spirit blur. Connected to these is the lore of the Bethen and Saligen Frauen—figures of an ancient feminine trinity that once embodied the cycles of life, death, and renewal.
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<div>Further north, in Ireland and the UK, festivals such as Beltane, Mari Lwyd, and the Strawboys reveal an unbroken thread between the seasonal turning of the year and communal acts of transformation and renewal.
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<div>Across Sápmi, the land of the Sámi people up north, the project aims to capture some of the beauty and depth of the Joik singing tradition, reindeer herding and indigenous land stewardship/ protection.
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<div>In Eastern Europe, places like Lithuania and Bulgaria preserve pre-Christian cosmologies in their songs, herb healing lineages and fire rituals — from the healing dances of Nestinarstvo to the solstice songs of Kupolė.
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<div>Finally, in Southern Europe — Italy, Spain, and Portugal and the Balkans — traditions like the Tarantella, Caretos de Podence, and the masked rituals of the Balkans embody renewal of life through trance and communal play.
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<div>Each of these destinations forms a chapter in the broader story of Europe’s old ways — not as relics of the past, but as living expressions of connection, vitality, and remembrance.
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<div>It would be a dream come true to deepen this research and bring it into a digestible form for the public, every little bit helps, also sharing it with your friends and community!
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<div>In honor of the old spirits, we begin.
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<div>With love,
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<div>Kat.
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Alessandro Salerno

Julian Gebhard

Lauren Pringle

Marijana Lemm

Carina Sperk

Holly Siddle

Gernot Meyer

Kasia J

Till Hansen

Noor Khader

Colleen Eberz

Miloslawa Ryzczak

Dennis Schüpf

Kendy Gable

Patricia Hegglin

Christian Huder

Laura Carbone

anne Becker

European Folk Documentary: Project Launch

European Folk Documentary: Project Launch

Still €4,114 to go. Help us build momentum.