An inquisitor is summoned to the town of Šumperk to investigate the misdemeanor of a beggar woman. He constructs a trial whose methods guarantee the confession of all the accused. Suddenly, a power is set against the decent and noble citizens, which, under the guise of cleansing the region of witches, is only out for its own enrichment and does not hesitate to sacrifice dozens of innocent lives and destroy its opponents in order to achieve this goal.

Text by Bontonfilm

This film will be shown as part of the "Czech Film Wednesday" series, as always in the original version with German subtitles.

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(This is an automatic translation by DeepL Translator.)

Otakar Vávra is one of, if not THE most controversial director in Czechoslovakia. He is the only one who has made films in all political constellations since the 1930s, even during the Nazi occupation. He was awarded a medal by them, and yet he was able to continue his career under the communists and was even honored as a national artist. After 1989, he no longer made films and his role in the decades before was examined somewhat more critically.

Vávra's films are often great monumental works, which naturally made him well received by the communists. His trilogy from the 1950s about Jan Hus, Jan Jan Žižka and the Hussite Wars are rather crude in nature with characters without much depth or contradictions, simple stories and a clear ideological slant. It may come as a surprise, but they still achieve quite good popularity ratings in the Czech Republic. Krakatit from 1948 (made before the communist seizure of power) was also not a film characterized by subtlety, but at least it was less ideological.

Kladivo na čarodějnice is probably the best, and certainly the most popular of his films from the communist era in the Czech Republic. At the same time, it is the last film that is still very popular in the Czech Republic today (which is a decisive selection criterion for us on Film Wednesday).

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Czechoslovakia, 1969, 103 min, OmU

Director: Otakar Vávra

It stars: Elo Romančík, Vladimír Šmeral, Soňa Valentová, Josef Kemr, Lola Skrbková, Jiřina Štěpničková, Marie Nademlejnská, Miriam Kantorková, Lubor Tokoš

(This is an automatic translation by DeepL Translator.)