Witchhammer

Witchhammer, adapted from Václav Kaplický's 1963 novel of the same name, is based on a real historical case, the Velké Losiny and Šumperk witch trials in northern Moravia. The real events began in 1678 when a beggar woman was accused of stealing a communion wafer; inquisitor Heinrich Franz Boblig von Edelstadt spent eighteen years accusing and executing roughly a hundred people for witchcraft, seizing wealthy families' property along the way. The film's clergyman character is based on the real Kryštof Lautner, who opposed the trials and was himself accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake in 1685. Read as a veiled allegory for the communist regime's show trials, the film was banned in Czechoslovakia, though it still won a prize at the 1970 Mar del Plata International Film Festival. Who it's for: anyone curious about a Czechoslovak classic based on a real witch hunt case, banned in its own country for political reasons. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a light historical period drama, since the film directly depicts torture and executions.