Our screening on Friday 9 October will be introduced by Czech film expert Peter Hames.
Voted the best Czech film ever made, Marketa Lazarová is a powerful and passionate medieval epic set in the mid-13th Century. Based on avant-garde writer Vladislav Vancura's novel, it follows the rivalry between two warring clans, the Kozlíks and the Lazars, and the doomed love affair of Mikolás Kozlík and Marketa Lazarová.
Re-creating an authentic world and as reminiscent of Tarkovsky and Kurosawa as it is of the rich tapestry of Czech fiction, this ambitious and multi-layered film is the crowning achievement of Frantisek Vlácil's career and one of the undiscovered cornerstones of world cinema.
