Arcadia Public Library

To Serve the Gods is about the beliefs, rituals and performances of a week-long ceremony given by a Haitian family in honor of its ancestral spirits. We are told at the outset of the film that this sevis loua only occurs every twenty to thirty years. This particular service takes place in a rural community in southern Haiti, on family land, where relatives have gathered to propitiate gods inherited by their ancestors.

"A guide to the practices, tools, and rituals of New Orleans Voodoo as well as the many cultural influences at its origins"--Provided by publisher.

In a house under renovation, a plumber uncovers a cellar no one knew about, and makes a rather grisly discovery -- a decapitated chicken, animal bones, and cauldrons containing beads, feathers, and other relics of religious ceremonies. In the center of the shrine, there is the skull of a teenage girl. Meanwhile, on a nearby lakeshore, the headless body of a teenage boy is found by a man walking his dog. Nothing is clear -- neither when the deaths...

Recounts the life of Marie Laveau, a voodoo priestess thought to have the power to contact spirits and cast spells.