The Dreamed Adventure
The winner of the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes, German director Valeska Grisebach’s first feature since 2017’s Western (MVFF40) deftly shape-shifts between genres. Yana Radeva plays Veska, a Bulgarian archeologist who runs into an old love, Said (Syuleyman Letifov), who is involved in some legally murky business dealings. When he goes missing, Veska investigates, leading to a labyrinthine border town mystery full of intrigue and local color. The Dreamed Adventure finds Grisebach once again working with a nonprofessional cast to create a film with the grit of a Western and the scope of Chinatown. One could happily get lost in the movie’s intoxicating atmosphere — or instead focus on Radeva’s layered performance as a woman enmeshed in a slow-burn thriller that she might not come out of alive. But above all, the drama creates a portrait of a little-seen world brought to vibrant life by Grisebach and actors who know the region’s riddles and dangers like the back of their weathered hands. —Tim Grierson
Director/s
Valeska Grisebach
Valeska Grisebach studied philosophy and German language and literature in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna. In 1993, she began studying film directing at the Vienna Film Academy. Her graduation film Be My Star (2001) was nominated for the Adolf Grimme Prize and won the Toronto International Film Festival’s Critics’ Award and the Torino Film Festival’s Grand Prize. She went on to make Longing (2006), winning numerous festival prizes, including the Gijón International Film Festival’s Grand Prix Asturias and the Warsaw International Film Festival’s Special Jury Award; and Western (2017), winner of the German Film Critics’ Award for Best Feature Film.