Vera Chytilová

Věra Chytilová (1929, Ostrava – 2014, Prague) was a key player in the Czechoslovak New Wave movement, which began to emerge while she was a student of FAMU (she graduated in 1962). From the outset she showed an interest in the experiences of the modern woman and her lot, while she avoided the downsides of both sentiment and dogmatic feminism. She was sharply critical of all superficiality and fraudulence in those who ostensibly sought moral values and truth in life, and, indeed, these were crucial beliefs in her own work. Her filmography reflects shifts through various stylistic periods: after a documentary approach early on (A Bag of Fleas, Another Way of Life) came intense stylisation and a move towards abstract meaning (Daisies, Fruit of Paradise), followed by work employing satire and parable (The Apple Game, Prefab Story, The Jester and the Queen, Pleasant Moments).

Source: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2016