Dog of God (Dieva suns)

In a 17th-century Swedish Livonian village, constant rain and drunkenness prevail. When a stolen relic sparks witchcraft accusations, an 80-year-old self-proclaimed werewolf named the Dog of God arrives with a mysterious gift: The Devil’s Balls. This triggers a chain of unexpected events that climaxes in a wild sexual rave party, transforming the village into a frenzy of unleashed desires.

While the Latvian film “Flow” won Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, giving the country its first-ever Oscar, the aggressively adult and visually wild “Dog of God” is something else entirely for Latvian animation. Employing rotoscope animation, siblings and co-directors Raitis and Lauris Ābele have crafted a delirious and horror-tinged fever dream of psychedelia that harkens back to the audacious and edgy animation days of filmmakers like Ralph Bakshi and cult classics like “Heavy Metal”. – Matt Barone