The 9th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, “Everything Must Change. RNS9,” organized by MOMus, presents a tribute to the work and practice of pioneering artist and filmmaker Ester Krumbachová, in collaboration with the Ester Krumbachová Archive, the National Film Archive in Prague, and the Greek Film Archive, through the screening of Krumbachová’s film Killing the Devil (Czechoslovakia, 1970, 72′), as part of the program of the 14th Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival.

The film will be screened with English and Greek subtitles in Hall B of the Greek Film Archive on Tuesday, December 16, and Wednesday, December 17, 2025, at 9:15 p.m.

An introduction to the film and the Ester Krumbachová Archive will be given by Nadia Argyropoulou, curator of the 9th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, with words by artist Blaise Kirschner, whose initiative was instrumental in giving researchers access to Krumbachová’s artistic legacy.

Ester Krumbachová (1923–1996) is best known for her extensive and outstanding work as a costume designer for film and theater, but her artistic legacy encompasses an astonishing range of activities, including art direction, screenwriting, directing, fiction and theoretical essays, drawing, painting, and jewelry design and construction. Czech film circles deeply respected her as a powerful creative force and mentor, affectionately describing her as the “spiritual guru” or éminence grise, of the movement, but her work remained largely unknown until recently, both in the Czech Republic and abroad.

Ester Krumbachová worked in theater from 1953, first in České Budějovice and later in Prague. She contributed to many important films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, including Diamonds of the Night, Daisies, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Carriage to Vienna, A Report on The Party and the Guests, Witschammer, Fruit of Paradise, and The Ear. In 1970, she directed her only film, Killing the Devil. From 1972 onwards, she was banned from contributing to feature films and television. She collaborated only occasionally on short films with Krátký Film Praha, with film studios outside Prague, and with several international productions. She managed to overcome the ban only in 1983, when she created the film Very Late in the Afternoon of a Faun with Věra Chytilová. After 1990, she was able to return to film production, and her last work included script editing, set design, and costume design for the film Marian (1996).

In recent years, there has been a widespread critical reappraisal of Krumbachová’s work, with her contribution being recognized in MUBI’s Notebook (January 2026), the Fashion in Film Festival in London and the UK (2025), the film program at the BFI, Southbank, London (2025), the Metrograph in New York (2024), international film festivals such as IFF Karlovy Vary and Rotterdam (2024), exhibitions in Prague, Brno, and Glasgow, and publications focusing on the artist’s unique vision. This renewed attention to her work owes much to the achievements of the Ester Krumbachová Archive, which was launched in 2016 and is run by the Prague-based curatorial organization ARE. The Archive’s mission was to digitize thousands of surviving objects, writings, scripts, and drawings by Krumbachová and to promote new artistic and scientific engagement with her artistic legacy. In 2016, twenty years after her death, her last collaborator, Ivan Paik, granted ARE, artist Blaise Kirschner, and a student research team from the AAAD in Prague access to her work. Until then, her artistic legacy had been inaccessible, despite repeated efforts by colleagues, friends, and film historians.

The collective work and dedicated research that led to the creation, life, and accessibility of this archive honors and reflects Krumbachová’s own practice of accessibility and exchange. This practice is honored, along with the artist’s work, in the context of this Biennale, as an example of persistent refusal in the face of oblivion and indifference, of connection through free thought and association, of social poetry that is a prerequisite for possibility.