Le Romanz de Fanuel is an experimental short film written and directed by Vir Andres Hera.

Drawing from the medieval text Le Roman de Saint Fanuel, the film stages a dialogue between the Mexica god Tlaloc and Fanuel, an eremitic figure preparing for metamorphosis within a mountainous, volcanic landscape.

Mountains, valleys, and glaciers are also protagonists. The upland landscapes retreat one behind the other, multiplying horizons. They are at once territories of immense beauty and symbols of subjugation, staging the smallness of the human body and geological force. The landscape becomes a mirror of interior transformation.

Fanuel, a figure born of miraculous conception in medieval legend, wanders through a contemporary terrain of exile. His body undergoes metamorphoses. The narrative unfolds through the displaced voice of Tlaloc, who speaks across epochs from a timeless dwelling. Through this divine voice, forgotten words and vanished temporalities return. Christian hagiography and pre-Hispanic cosmology intersect without hierarchy.

Inspired by the figure of the tiempero, the syncretic mountain guardian who is both pagan and Christian, the film approaches metamorphosis as spiritual passage. The transformation of sex and spirit is treated not as spectacle but as entry into mystery.

As Yannick Haenel writes:

“I watch the film. It is a dazzling experience. We witness the mystical itinerary of Fanuel: first the contemplation of sacred figures in a church, then solitude in a deserted mountain village, the crossing of doors, writing, more doors, and the walk toward the volcano, and the body that finds its narrow gate, that of spiritual metamorphosis. We hear a voice: ‘The gods are not dead. Only your perception has died. We have not left; we have simply ceased to manifest. Or perhaps you have closed your eyes.’ Le Romanz de Fanuel, with the beauty of a tranquil miracle, makes the impossible visible.” » 1 «