Daisies

Synopsis

Věra Chytilová’s second film, the 1966 absurdist and aesthetically riveting Daisies was an instant cult classic and infamous enfant terrible of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Premiering two years before the 1968 Prague Spring, it follows the misadventures of two young women named Marie I and Marie II (embodied by non-professional actresses Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová), who decide to mirror the indulgent world around them. In their world, nothing traditional is sacred and food, clothes, men, and war become both ammunition and subject and their pranks. This provocative and timeless gem of feminist cinema is a surrealist fever-dream and with fresh eyes, begs the viewer to open their eyes on what matters/doesn’t matter.
Dorota Lech

Director Biography

Věra Chytilová (2 February 1929 – 12 March 2014) was an avant-garde Czech film director and pioneer of Czech cinema. Banned by the Czechoslovak government in the 1960s, she is best known for her Czech New Wave film, Sedmikrásky (Daisies). Her subsequent films screened at international film festivals, including Vlčí bouda (1987), which screened at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival,[1] A Hoof Here, a Hoof There (1989), which screened at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival,[2] and The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (1992), which screened at the 18th Moscow International Film Festival.[3] For her work, she received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Medal of Merit and the Czech Lion award