This is a documentary about a small Bulgarian village. It’s a rural community with run-down buildings. The only people you will find there are seniors. They were born here, and they will die here. And once they do, who knows will happen with the village? But they’re not the subject of this documentary. Instead, it’s the animals that we accompany in their daily lives. Though if the villagers’ superstitious ramblings are to be believed, there’s something more sinister afoot.

Everyone seems to agree that the mischievous cat is a vampire. And anyone who comes across it is cursed. Despite the residents’ pkleas, the owner refuses to get rid of the poor feline. After all, this cat is inhabited by the spirit of her recently deceased husband. She needs to care for him and allow him the freedom to roam the place he grew up in while he still can. The other villagers think she’s crazy, since the cat is obviously an evil vampire who’s just trying to trick her. But if she insists on keeping the animal, what can they do?

No matter how outrageous the claims get, Constanze Schmitt’s camera seems to suggest they might be true. An old lady own a donkey, which she uses for all sorts of daily chores. According to rumours, the donkey might just be her son, whom the witch has cursed. The camera lends a real humanity to the animal. We watch it being worked to the bone day after day. When it’s allowed to relax for a moment, the camera rests on an extreme close-up of its eye. It evokes such sadness. Cinema rarely allows animals this level of empathy (though when it does, it’s weirdly often donkeys).

In general, the camera stays at eye level with the animals, no matter if it’s a cat, a donkey, or a little lamb. Humans are only ever present through proximity, and the camera has little interest in framing them. At no point do we see a human face. But they talk, gossiping about the animals right next to them. As if they weren’t there to watch and listen. A farmer keeps talking about how he’s going to slaughter a lamb once it has gained enough weight, in a creep harbinger of the poor animal’s fate.

Most of the documentary has an ominous tone: the doomed village, the superstitions about witches, vampires, and dark magic, and the animals stripped of agency by the humans. But the composers of the film seem to have missed the memo entirely. The score sounds like a school marching band. It competes with the images. At times, it kils an the otherwise incredible atmosphere.

Silent Observers is an unconventional documentary. It depicts the decay of a small, rural village through the eyes of its inhabitants’ domesticated animals. And in doing so, it highlights how they suffer in the face of tradition and superstition. More than that, it showcases humanity’s need to blame others for their misfortune. Whether that’s another person, an animal, or a supernatural entity. This documentary offers abundant empathy to the animals, and partly humanises them – something we often fail to do.

Silent Observers just premiered at CPH:DOX.