Hello, my name's Johnson to Clure. I'm here today with Will Sloan.

And you're listening to The Important Cinema Club. And today, we're talking about Vera Hittlova or Hittalova.

I have a lot of difficulty pronouncing her name. Yes. This often is a problem that we run into when we talk about

Eastern European filmmakers, Asian filmmakers, filmmakers from all over the world, really.

North American filmmakers whose names are not familiar with. We try, and we cover the waterfront on this

podcast from Calhoun to California. And today we find ourselves in Soviet Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic.

Yes, we're talking about the director of Daisies, one of the big movies when people get into

experimental cinema. Had you seen this one before, Will? I had not. It had always been on my list,

because this is not just a landmark of Soviet cinema, even though it was suppressed in the Soviet Union.

And it's not just a landmark of experimental cinema.

It's also a landmark of feminist cinema.

It's a movie that's come up a lot in recent years as there's been an increasing appetite for female filmmakers and female stories.

And we'll get it right out of the way,

right here, is that this is a film that I struggled with mightily. And I had seen it before.

I had seen it in a theatrical setting. And when I saw it, I went, huh, maybe there's just something

I'm not getting. So I was very excited to revisit it for this podcast. Now it's my galaxy brain.

And I had the same reaction again. Like,

I know why it's important. I know why it's radical. I know why people like it. But it feels like I should

be having fun with this. Yes, I had exactly the same feeling. However, I do say that with respect.

Of course. And I want to reassure people listening that I think both Justin and I found a lot to appreciate

in this filmmaker's work this week.

I think that the films that she made after Daisy's kind of shut down her career were much more

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