page_title: Witchhammer
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Witchhammer / Production
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Otakar Vávra
context_page_description: Witchhammer is a 1970 Czechoslovak drama film directed by Otakar Vávra and starring Elo Romančík. Based on the novel Kladivo na čarodějnice by Václav Kaplický, Witchhammer relates the story of the Northern Moravia witch trials of the 1670s, focusing on the priest Kryštof Lautner, played by Romančík, who falls victim to the witchhunt after opposing the trials. The film contains possible allegory about Communist show trials in Czechoslovakia.
  The film had a limited release in Czechoslovakia. Despite this, it won awards at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival in 1970 and is considered one of Vávra's finest films.
context_section_description: Director Otakar Vávra made the film in 1969. In crafting the screenplay with Ester Krumbachová, Vávra drew from Kaplický's novel and also records from the historical trials in Šumperk. Vávra was reminded of trials he had seen in the 1950s, stating that "In historical records I came upon sensible, hard-working people who fell quite unexpectedly into the clutches of the revived medieval witch trial machine". Changes made from the novel include beginning the film with women bathing, to the scorn of a monk, as opposed to the novel, which begins with knitting. Vávra and Krumbachová thus set up a theme of sexual repression as political repression, which Krumbachová would continue in her next screenplays.
  The film was produced by Barrandov Studios. Cinematographer Josef Illík shot the film in CinemaScope. Krumbachová is also credited with writing the "soldiers' song" used in the film.
caption: Otakar Vávra co-wrote and directed the film in 1969, consulting trial records.
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