Boredom, bikinis and a blistering critique of the beauty myth this genuine feminist classic from Vera Chytilova’s (1929-2014) is as thrilling now as it was 50 years ago.


An innovative and brilliantly absurd masterpiece of the '60s Czech New Wave, the film was made three years before the Prague Spring but dissent is clearly in the air. Daisies follows the misadventures of two young women both called Marie (played by Jitka Cerhová and Ivana Karbanová), who rebelliously scam rich dates, cut off their own heads and wreck an official feast. The film’s anarchic attitude saw it banned by the Czech authorities and it stayed under wraps for years.


Some have called the film’s freewheeling rage against the world proto-riot grrrl, and the two Maries (defiantly unholy) are a total riot - enjoy.

Screening with short film Saute Ma Ville (Blow Up My Town)
(Dir: Chantal Akerman | Belgium 1968 | 13 mins)
Made when she was just 18, Chantal Akerman dropped out of film school to make this disturbing look at the claustrophobia of the domestic. A caustic prelude to her masterpiece Jeanne Dielman.

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