Who’s Afraid of Ester Krumbachová?
Program led by curators Ruth Noack and Jesse Jones and guest Pádraic E. Moore
4.5.2018, 11AM–9 PM
Ponrepo Cinema
Free admission
Although Ester Krumbachová is recognised as one of the key cultural figures in the Czechoslovakia of the 1960s and 1970s, her independent work is surprisingly little known. The festival featured the one film she directed herself, Vražda Ing. Čerta (Murdering the Devil, 1970), a proto-feminist work about a woman who starts cooking for “the Devil” and ends up killing him. Its program, created by curators Ruth Noack and Jesse Jones, invited “partners in crime” from the ranks of artists, film theorists, and curators to the screening of Vražda Ing. Čerta in order to contextualise Krumbachová’s film from the contemporary perspectives of feminism, magic, and materialism. Through these collaborative interdisciplinary viewpoints, we are now beginning to give Krumbachová’s oeuvre the necessary context for it to finally be seen – and be seen anew. These themes were explored by curators Noack and Jones and their guest Pádraic E. Moore during the day of lectures, screenings, debates, and performances at the Ponrepo Cinema.
Fatima’s Letter, an avant-garde film from British filmmaker Alia Syed from 1992, and A Question of Silence, a 1982 feature film by Marleen Gorris, seem at first glance to not have much in common. Yet both films, like Vražda Ing. Čerta, represent the attempt to break free of the constraints of normative female sexual roles and to attain fulfilment and feel pleasure.
Lois Weber’s silent film Shoes, from 1916, follows the dreams of a young worker whose relationship with capitalism is reflected in her suffering and desire for a simple pair of shoes. The film captures the class dynamic between feminine desire and the body,which becomes alocus of exploitation.Konec srpna v hotelu Ozón (Late August at the Hotel Ozone), directed by Jan Schmidt based ona novel by Pavel Juráček, is a Czech film from 1966 depicting a dark post-apocalyptic landscape in which women are the only survivors. Its themes of death and the regeneration of the world are connected with questions of existential feminism, and perhaps even the question of what feminism will look like at the end of the world.
The curated program Who’s Afraid of Ester Krumbachová contributed to the debate provoked by Vražda Ing. Čerta about the nature of female desire and how far we will go to satisfy it.
Program:
11:00 / Vražda Ing. Čerta (Murdering the Devil) / Director: Ester Krumbachová, Czechoslovakia, 1970, 77 min.
For her directorial debut, Ester Krumbachová chose the battle of the sexes, which she treated – with humour and a strong dose of stylisation, using an intentionally fragmented narrative – as a “duel” between the host and her guest.
12:40 / Fatima’s Letter / Director: Alia Syed, United Kingdom, 1992, 19 min.
During a trip on the London Underground, the heroine of the film watches other travellers, and through a broad range of association, her own past comes back to her. In this film, British artist Alia Syed develops the theme of imagination as a tool of both self-reflection and social criticism.
13:00 / Break
14:00 / A Question of Silence / Director: Marleen Gorris, Netherlands, 93 min.
Dutch director Marleen Gorris’s debut is a drama about three women who kill an unknown man without even knowing one another. Against the backdrop of a crime plot, Gorris problematises the issue of justice and the means by which, and for whom, it is attained.
16:00 / Break
16:15 / Performance: Radost!! (Joy!!) – Kateřina Konvalinová, Viktorie Vášová
A performative reading of one of Ester Krumbachová’s unrealised scripts found in her estate.
16:45 / Konec srpna v hotelu Ozon (Late August at the Hotel Ozone) / Director: Jan Schmidt, 77 min.
Nine women roam a post-apocalyptic landscape searching for other survivors. In the film, Jan Schmidt – together with the author of the source text, Pavel Juráček – reacted to collective anxieties like the threat of nuclear catastrophe, the disintegration of traditional social values, and intergenerational conflicts.
18:15 / Break
18:30 / Shoes / Director: Lois Weber, USA, 57 min. / live musical performance by Adéla Sobotková
American director Lois Weber – provocatively, for her era – combined drama with social and political criticism. In the urban drama Shoes, she films the story of a girl who attempts to break free of her existential trap, but all she has to hold onto are her dreams.
19:30 / Concluding discussion
*
The projections were introduced by Pádraic E. Moore, Jesse Jones, and Ruth Noack.
Ruth Noack (born 1964) is a curator and art historian. She studied art history, audiovisual media, and feminist theory in Germany, England, and Austria. Since the 1990s, she has taught, published, and curated. She was curator of Documenta 12 (2007) and currently teaches at the Dutch Art Institute. In all of her activities, she uses an interdisciplinary approach. She is primarily interested in feminist aesthetics and film theory. She has written about the works of a number of artists (e.g. Eva Hesse, Danica Dakić, Lynn Hershman, and Mary Kelly). Her other texts mainly involve exegesis of artworks.
Jesse Jones (born 1978) is an artist who gained international renown as the representative of Ireland in the 57th Venice Biennale, where she presented Tremble Tremble, a film about witchcraft as a potential tool of emancipation. Her current projects, in which she works with the concept of “expanded film”, are involve intergenerational feminist dialogue. In her work, Jones reflects and represents historical instances of collective resistance against various forms of oppression. Her films are intended as both gallery installations and public actions, at which she presents overlooked topics that nonetheless resonate in collective awareness.
Pádraic E. Moore (born 1982) is an author, curator, and art historian. He studied English literature and visual arts in Dublin and, in 2010, completed a doctoral program in Stockholm. In a world ever more constructed by technologies and their mechanisms, Moore sees visual art as an alternative method of social interaction. Moore draws attention to the ways in which society is absorbing elements of the esoteric tradition and how this manifests itself, for example in aesthetic canons. He is currently researching occult groups and their influence on the transformation of society at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
*
Photo: Ester Krumbachová with actors Jiřina Bohdalová and Vladimír Menšík during the shoot of the film "Murdening the Devil" (1970, directed, written and costume and set design by Ester Krumbachová)
Who’s Afraid of Ester Krumbachová? was organised by Are | are-events.org and the National Film Archive and supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Prague City Hall, and the CIT Crawford College of Art & Design. The program was part of a long-term project researching Ester Krumbachová’s estate in collaboration with the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague, the Center for Contemporary Art Glasgow, Czech Society for Film Studies, the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, the Arts and Theatre Institute, the Film Studies Department of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prague, the National Film Archive, and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.