Given the current recommendation to stay home and practice social distancing, we at the Chicago International Film Festival are looking at past selections from each year of the Festival that you can stream now from home. Stream our past selections as we look forward to the 56th Chicago International Film Festival this October 14-25, 2020. Find the full 56 Films for 56 Years selections here.

For today’s #56Films entry, stream one of the greatest Czech films of all time, the Medieval historical drama Marketa Lazarova, produced in 1967 and screened at the 7th Chicago International Film Festival in 1971.

Marketa Lazarova

Director: František Vláčil
7th Chicago International Film Festival

A rivalry between two Medieval clans is brought to its boiling point when the daughter of a feudal landowner is kidnapped by a band of pagan robbers. War is beginning to brew in the snow-covered fields of Bohemia. The film renders the conflict with a keen eye for period detail, reveling in the mud-spattered visages and primal passions of its characters. Employing whirlwind widescreen cinematography, dreamlike storytelling, and low-to-the-ground realism, director František Vláčil reimagines the very idea of the historical drama. A forceful evocation of the clashes between love, humanity, violence, and barbarism, Marketa Lazarova feels untethered by time or place. — Sam Flancher, Festival Programmer

Streaming Details:
Marketa Lazarova is available to stream on The Criterion Channel.