Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Giants, fairies, magicians, ghosts, dragons, and monsters of all kinds… Here’s what your Cinémathèque has in store this summer! Since Méliès, filmmakers have embraced the fanstastic potential of cinema, creating infinite phantasmagorias and extraordinary spectacles where the unreal becomes real. Step into a world of fantasy and boundless imagination: whatever your generation, the monsters and wonders that once filled your childhood dreams are back this summer 2025!
Between dream and reality, in a hallucinatory nightmarish universe, thanks to Jan Curík's brilliant photography, Valérie tries as best she can to live through the end of her puberty without being objectified by a multitude of male characters. Screenwriter Ester Krumbachová co-writes one of her most important screenplays here, having also contributed to many other landmark films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, including Zbyněk Brynych's And the Fifth Horseman is Fear, Věra Chytilová's Little Daisies and Jan Němec's The Party and the Guests.
Jaromil Jireš
Jaromil Jireš was a Czech filmmaker and screenwriter. His 1963 film The Cry was entered into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. It is often described as the first film of the Czechoslovak New Wave, a movement known for its dark humor, use of non-professional actors, and "art-cinema realism". Another of Jireš's prominent works is The Joke (1969), adapted from a novel by Milan Kundera. The film was produced during the political liberalization of the 1968 Prague Spring and contains many scenes which satirize and criticize the country's communist leadership. The film had initial success in theaters but was then banned by authorities for the next twenty years. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), set in the early 19th century, was based on a novel by Vítězslav Nezval. Following the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia, Jireš continued to work in the country, making less controversial material. In 1971, he directed My Love to the Swallows, a World War II film about a Czech resistance fighter. He continued making films through the '80s and '90s, including ballet and opera documentaries for television.
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Valérie et les autres : fantastique au féminin
Among August’s screenings, some films explore the fantastic through dreamlike and poetic lenses, drawing it from the ambiguous realms of sensuality and fantasy. This is especially true of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, a gem of the Czech New Wave, where we enter the surreal world of a young girl who has just had her first period and suddenly finds herself surrounded by relatives turned into vampires.
