Ester Krumbachová

Ester Krumbachová (12 November 1923 – 13 January 1996) was a Czech screenwriter, costume designer, stage designer, author and director. She is known for her contributions to Czech New Wave cinema in the 1960s, including collaborations with directors Věra Chytilová and Jan Němec. Krumbachová would often act as both writer and art director on the films she worked on, such as Daisies and Fruit of Paradise. She directed one film in her lifetime, being The Murder of Mr. Devil, released in 1971. Krumbachová was largely banned from working in film during the 1980s by the communist party due to her involvement in A Report on the Party and the Guests.

In 2017, a private archive of Krumbachová's artwork, photography, documents, and clothes was made public by curators Edith Jeřábková and Zuzana Blochová. Krumbachová has since been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at TRANZITDISPLAY in Prague (2017), and the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow (2018).

Early life Ester Krumbachová was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1923. In her youth, she lived through the Stalinist period of the Communist era which she avoided becoming politically involved in by working at farms and doing manual labor. Krumbachová went to school at the University of the Arts, where she studied in the arts and graphics branch. She went to college and, beginning in 1954, She began to work in the film industry in 1961.

Career She began working in the film industry after a commission to work on the film, The Man from the First Century (1962). Her first addition to a script was on Zbyněk Brynych's Holocaust film The Fifth Horseman is Fear (1965). However, this credit is masked by her only being listed the film's costume designer. Krumbachová would go on to be the script writer for Němec's following film, Martyrs of Love (1967). The film is based on a novella by Krumbachová. In 1968, after the Prague Spring she worked on Fruit of Paradise, an avant garde adaptation of the Adam and Eve story, with Chytilová. in 1969, Krumbachová began to write The Murder of Mr. Devil with Němec; this would be the only film she would direct. Finished in 1970, Krumbachová's sole directorial work had her in the role of script writer, art designer and costume designer. Veteran Czech filmmaker Otakar Vávra consulted Krumbachová on his 1970 film Witchhammer. She adapted Valerie and Her Week of Wonders This left Krumbachová to make and sell plastic jewelry and amulets for a living.

In 2005, Věra Chytilová directed the documentary In Search of Ester about Krumbachová's life and involvement in the Czech New Wave.

Krumbachová was the subject of the retrospective exhibition A Weakness for Raisins: Films and Archives of Ester Krumbachovà at the CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. The exhibition presented elements of Krumbachovà's personal archives to explore themes of "agency, magic, materialism, gender, feminism, the interconnected nature of reality, and sensory forms of knowledge."

Krumbachová's impact on the Czech New Wave and Czechoslovak cinema has been described by Jan Žalman, saying, "she (Krumbachová) is the first to bring her gift of philosophical abstraction and Kafkaesque understanding of symbolism, which Max Brod called "the illumination of eternity by earthly means," to bear upon the somewhat limited world of Czech cinematic reality, making a spiritual breakthrough and bringing the new wave to the level of modern literature and drama.".

Personal life and death She was briefly married to architect Slavíček Písařík Němec described her as his "muse".

Krumbachová died in 1996 in Prague.

Filmography As writer The Fifth Horseman is Fear (1965) Daisies (1966) A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966) Martyrs of Love (1967) Mother and Son (1967) Witchhammer (1970) Fruit of Paradise (1970) Killing the Devil (1970) Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) Faunovo velmi pozdní odpoledne (1983) Strata (1983)

As costume designer Diamonds of the Night (1964) The Dear Departed (1964) If a Thousand Clarinets (1965) The Fifth Horseman is Fear (1965) Long Live the Republic (1965) Daisies (1966) A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966) Romance for Bugle (1967) Martyrs of Love (1967) Ta naše písnička česká (1967) The Nun's Night (1967) Pensión pro svobodné pány (1968) All My Compatriots (1969) Muž, ktery stoupl v ceně (1969) Ezop (1970) Fruit of Paradise (1970) Nevěsta (1970) Byli jednou dva písaři (1972) Straw Hat (1972) Tajemství velikeho vypravěče (1972) Poslední motýl (1991)

As director The Murder of Mr. Devil (1971)