with live music by The Valerie Project
This rare Czech new wave classic is a surreal tale in which love, fear, sex and religion merge into one fantastic world. "The 13-year-old title heroine, who's just had her first period, traipses through a shifting landscape of sensuous, anticlerical, and vaguely medieval fantasy-horror enchantments that register more as a collection of dream adventures, spurred by guiltless and polysexual eroticism, than as a conventional narrative. Virtually every shot is a knockout.... If you aren't too anxious about decoding what all this means, you're likely to be entranced." (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader)
A live soundtrack will be performed by The Valerie Project, a ten-piece touring ensemble made up of Philly's finest underground musicians. The Valerie Project is spearheaded by Greg Weeks (Espers, Grass), Margie Wienk (Fern Knight) and Brooke Sietinsons (Espers, Grass), the ensemble includes harpist Mary Lattimore, cellist Helena Espvall (Espers), Vocalist Tara Burke (Fursaxa), bassist/percussionist Jesse Sparhawk (Fern Knight, Timesbold), flautist/keyboardist Jessica Weeks (Woodwose, Grass), enigmatic electronicist Charles Cohen and percussionist Jim Ayre (Fern Knight, Rake). Key to the concept is how reframing the film's action with an alternate soundtrack draws new interpretations from a work of intricate depth and changeable meaning. Foremost in the musicians' minds, however, is paying tribute to a timeless fantasy film of increasing relevance. The tone is lush, orchestral and acid-charged. More at valerieproject.org
A 35mm archival print imported from the National Film Archive in the Czech Republic, with clearance provided by Ateliˇry Bonton Zlin, will be screened. Cosponsored with the Concert Commission, the Dept. of Music and Dept of Theatre, Film & Dance. Tickets for this special event ($12 general/$10 students) will go on sale April 5 from the Ithaca Guitar Works downtown and on April 7 from the Cornell Cinema office, 104 WSH.
1970, color, 1 hour 17 minutes, Czechoslavakia