Ester Krumbachová: Phantom of the Czechoslovak New Wave

One of the key, unsung visionaries of the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s and early ’70s, Ester Krumbachová left an indelible imprint on some of the movement’s defining films—including A REPORT ON THE PARTY AND GUESTS, DAISIES, and VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS—through her inimitable work as a costume designer, art director, and screenwriter, forging a boldly anarchic, surreal, often defiantly feminine aesthetic to match the freewheeling spirit of the times. Her sole directorial effort, the satanic feminist farce THE MURDER OF MR. DEVIL, is as wickedly subversive as anything the New Wave produced, so it’s little wonder that she was one of many artists effectively banned from filmmaking by the Communist authorities. Her legacy lives on, however, in the iconoclastic words and images that gave shape to one of the most radical creative eruptions in the history of cinema.