Set in the Middle Ages during the shift from Paganism to Christianity, this film based on a novel by Vladislav Vančura follows the rivalry between two corrupt clans of violent, pillaging feudal lords. Marketa Lazarová’s misfortune begins when she is kidnapped and abused by three clan members.

František Vláčil’s ambitious Middle Ages saga is an otherwordly, experimental epic and pure existential spectacle: a film modernist in style and conversely historical in setting. Disorientatingly dense, and both brutal and beguiling, Marketa Lazarova is a renowned masterpiece of Czech cinema.