Our screening on Sunday 11 October will be introduced by writer, lecturer, and Czech cinema expert, Peter Hames.
Set in a vividly recreated 13th-century Europe, František Vláčil’s visionary medieval epic chronicles the tale of a young boy forced to join the Order of the Teutonic Knights. Years later he abandons them, only to be pursued by a fanatical comrade and made to pay a terrible price for his rejection of the Holy Order.
Visually stunning, with dazzling monochrome cinematography and intense period detail, The Valley of the Bees is a raw and haunting moral fable about the conflict between human nature and dogmatism - and just as powerful and compelling a film as Vláčil’s more famous work, Marketa Lazarová.
