{"id":200794,"date":"2025-10-15T02:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/200794\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T02:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:19:11","slug":"dog-of-god-rotoscoped-medieval-horror-movie-acquired-for-2026-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/200794\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Dog of God’ – Rotoscoped Medieval Horror Movie Acquired for 2026 Release"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cartuna has acquired North American distribution rights to\u00a0Dog of God, an animated horror-fantasy and Latvia\u2019s 2026 Oscar submission.<\/p>\n

Dog of God will release in theaters in 2026.<\/p>\n

The hallucinogenic film is set in \u201ca 17th-century Livonian village, where religious fervor, accusation, and otherworldly phenomena converge. The film follows villagers as a missing relic, whispered witchcraft, and a self-proclaimed werewolf called the \u2018Dog of God\u2019 upend their fragile order. Rendered in meticulously crafted rotoscope animation, the film blends the grotesque, the poetic, and the absurd with folkloric dread.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s described as a \u201crotoscoped medieval fever dream\u201c that \u201cblurs the line between faith and hysteria.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dog of God\u00a0was written and directed by\u00a0Lauris \u0100bele and\u00a0Raitis \u0100bele, co-written by Ivo Briedis and\u00a0Harijs Grundmanis.<\/p>\n

The film has been selected as Latvia\u2019s official submission for the\u00a02026 Academy Awards\u00a0in the\u00a0Best International Feature Film\u00a0category, and has been shortlisted\u00a0by the\u00a0European Film Awards\u00a0for\u00a0Best Animated Feature.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDog of God is one of those films that defies categorization\u2014it\u2019s part parable, part fever dream,\u201c said James Belfer, Founder and CEO of Cartuna. \u201cIt\u2019s bold, unsettling, and darkly funny in all the best ways. Lauris and Raitis have such a singular vision, and we\u2019re thrilled to champion it to audiences who crave something truly new in animation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Director Raitis \u0100bele was equally excited by the partnership, proclaiming, \u201cThe distributors I talked to were impressed and afraid. Cartuna was no exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

The animated feature made its premiere earlier this year at the Tribeca Festival<\/a> and screened at more than 30 festivals worldwide, including the Fantasia International Film Festival\u00a0and London\u2019s\u00a0FrightFest.<\/p>\n

Producers include Kristele Pudane,\u00a0Raitis \u0100bele, and\u00a0Giovanni Labadessa.<\/p>\n

\"Dog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cartuna has acquired North American distribution rights to\u00a0Dog of God, an animated horror-fantasy and Latvia\u2019s 2026 Oscar submission.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[87206,96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-200794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-dog-of-god","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}