Valeska Grisebach returns with The Dreamed Adventure

Welcome back to season seven of the Klassiki Podcast! We’ve got ten more episodes coming up for you on the past and present of eastern European film, including some reporting from the summer festival circuit and some a very exciting screening series coming up for our American friends.

One of the highlights of last month’s Cannes festival was the long-awaited return of German filmmaker Valeska Grisebach, who took home the Jury Prize for The Dreamed Adventure, which arrives nine long years after her previous feature Western. That film was about a group of German labourers in the Bulgarian mountains. The Dreamed Adventure sees the director remain in Bulgaria, filming this time with an all-Bulgarian cast. Grisebach has crafted another brilliant subversion of her genre influences with the story of Veska, a female archaeologist who gets tangled in the criminal underworld of her small border town. Grisebach’s dedication to research, local, non-professional casting, and a collaborative, improvisational approach to scripting and performance give her and her cast the room to explore the traumatic recent history of Bulgaria and the murky future awaiting Europe as a whole.

Host Sam Goff sat down with Valeska Grisebach to discuss her attachment to Bulgaria, her take on gender and genre, and the incredible real life stories that informed her unique take on the gangster film.

Get in touch: podcast@klassiki.online.

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Intro music by Juliet Merchant.