01Title

Based on a true story

Burn Her
Slowly

Written by Edith Storm

Some obsessions are holy. Some are just male.

Logline

Before the witch hunts consumed Europe, one woman's defiance against a papal inquisitor lit the fuse — unleashing a brutal reckoning of lust and vengeance that gave birth to the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, the witch hunters' bible that sanctioned the persecution of women for centuries.

Festival recognition

Awards & Recognition

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Austria, 1485

Synopsis

A story history forgot, now finally told.

Heinrich Kramer arrives in Innsbruck armed with papal authority to root out witches. Innsbruck is a world carved by faith and fear; a patriarchal stronghold where whispers fester into accusations and women's fates are decided beneath flickering candlelight.

The city is cloaked in grey stone and snow, a frozen stage in stark contrast to the flames waiting to be lit. But Kramer's power is undermined when Helena Scheuberin, a sharp-tongued merchant's wife, humiliates him in public.

What begins as insult festers into obsession: Kramer pursues her under the guise of divine justice, but his interrogation becomes disturbingly intimate — fusing lust with hatred and scripture with desire.

Helena seeks out Barbara, the outcast midwife and healer, and the two women, along with Barbara's daughter Rosina, become bound in a web of blood, secrets, and survival. Seven women are accused. Rosina discovers that Helena is her true mother.

In the end, Kramer's pyres will burn — but Helena does not. When the bishop halts the trials, Kramer leaves humiliated, and Helena's defiance is immortalized, twisted into the very text meant to erase her.

Key characters

Helena Scheuberin

A sharp-tongued merchant's wife with a spine of iron. Fearless, cunning, and impossible to break. She humiliates the inquisitor and becomes the embodiment of everything the town fears and burns — a woman who refuses to kneel, even in flames.

The inquisitor

Heinrich Kramer

A self-anointed genius in priest's robes, with icy eyes and towering pride. Arrogant, fanatical, haunted by his own desires, he hunts women to assert his dominance and crown himself judge over all.

Barbara · Rosina

A dangerous sisterhood

Barbara, the midwife and healer
Barbara — the outcast midwife & healer
Rosina in the village square
Rosina — through her eyes

Genre & Tone

Historical Psychological Thriller

† Gothic Drama †

  • Sensual
  • Visceral & atmospheric
  • Claustrophobic
  • Slow burn
  • Coercive intimacy
  • Female rage
  • Ritualistic
  • Obsessive
  • Provocative

Kramer

Confess.

Helena

Confess what? That you wake with my name on your lips? That you can't decide whether to damn me or yourself?

Kramer

You are the devil.

Helena

No. But you wish I were.

Moving image

Teaser

Original teaser

Grey stone, snow & flame

Visual Reference

Key art

Posters

Burn Her Slowly posterBurn Her Slowly poster

Relevance

Why now

We are living through another cycle of dispossession and backlash — from attacks on reproductive rights to the renewed silencing of women's voices.

Burn Her Slowly reframes the witch hunts not as superstition, but as the first organized campaign to discipline women's bodies, labor, and autonomy at the dawn of capitalism. What was once enforced by fire is now enforced by policy, shame, and control.

This story has been absent from the screen for centuries. Its absence is as telling as the violence it describes.

BURN
HER
SLOWLY

MALLEUS MALEFICARUM

Edith Storm

The writer

Edith Storm

Edith Storm is an award-winning screenwriter, author and poet based in Stockholm, working across contemporary and period drama for film and television. Her background in literature and journalism, alongside fifteen years as a therapist and child welfare social worker, informs her work's psychological depth, precision of language, and exploration of how institutional power shapes our most intimate relationships.

She is currently under contract with a US production company to rewrite a feature screenplay and has several other projects in development. She is also studying directing at Stockholm Film School, extending her storytelling practice from the page to the screen.

You can read more about Edith Storm and her projects on her website www.edithstorm.se