We Who Speak with the Dead: Galician Folk Belief and Cinematic Reimaginings in Diana Toucedo’s Trinta lumes (Thirty Souls, 2018)

Abstract

This article analyzes Diana Toucedo’s Trinta lumes (Thirty Souls, 2018) as an example of folk horror rooted in Galician folklore and shaped by the aesthetics of magical realism. It explores how the film reimagines oral traditions and ancestral beliefs through a cinematic language that blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction, nature and culture, life and death. By focusing on liminal figures – particularly the young female protagonist – the study examines how folklore serves as a medium for cultural memory, continuity, and resistance.