Friday, August 9, 6:00 p.m. | Czechoslovakian director Vera Chytilová is best known for her 1966 seminal feminist cinematic primal scream DAISIES. Released three years prior, her first film SOMETHING DIFFERENT interweaves the stories of competitive gymnast Eva and the disillusioned housewife Věra. In PLEASANT MOMENTS, Hana is a dedicated psychiatrist who begins to blur the boundaries between her profession and her personal life. Both films are empathetic and realistic explorations of her character's interiorities and keen commentaries on the roles and expectations placed on women. Chytilová consistently presented complicated and flawed female protagonists without judgment. Whether they are considering an affair, struggling with mental health, or engaging in an epic food fight, the director was more interested in honestly exploring how they responded to and interacted with the world around them. Chytilová was an empathetic, humanist filmmaker, who once noted, “The artist may, and indeed must express only what he knows and what concerns him, because he thinks it should be changed. We want to create a new social morality and in the same breath we—artists—lie. Lying in art should be outlawed. What more could we lose as artists, if we lost truth?”

Related Event: PLEASANT MOMENTS Friday, August 9, 8:00 p.m.

Awards & Nominations

Winner - Grand Prize, Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival

Entrances and Exits: With Entrances and Exits, we showcase the first and last films from 10 beloved filmmakers. For this series, we abide by three rules: films included must not be posthumous releases, they must be feature films, and they must be solo directorial efforts. Some of these pairings seem to speak to one another, presenting a cinematic through-line that represents a consistent voice from cinematic cradle to grave. Others represent dramatic departures, reflecting a filmmaker’s leap from emerging artist to heavyweight player. What new elements do we see when we connect these entrances and exits, and how do the bodies of work between them transform when we consider the bookends of a career? Though these filmmakers are no longer with us, they sure did leave an impression. View Entrances and Exits Series. Tickets sold individually for each film.

The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu