If you’re nearing the end of your 2024-mandated GirlsGenera+ionCatherine Called Birdy, she’s returning to acting for the first time since 2022 in Treasure, a new dramedy from writer-director Julia von Heinz.
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Dunham stars as Ruth, a New York-based music journalist who embarks on a road trip through 1990s Poland with Edek (Stephen Fry), her widowed, “charmingly stubborn” Holocaust survivor father. As the two travel through the homes and remnants of Edek’s childhood, they learn new ways to connect with each other as well as their family’s past.
Treasure—based on the novel Too Many Men by Lily Brett—is the third and final installment in German director von Heinz’ “Aftermath” trilogy, which explores the effects of the Holocaust on different generations. The other two films in the trilogy are Hanna’s Journey (2014), which follows a woman who travels to Israel to help people with disabilities, and And Tomorrow The Entire World (2020), which was inspired by von Heinz’ own experience as an anti-fascist advocate.
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“Parental relationships are always complex, but with that first generation who survived the war and the Holocaust, it was even more complicated,” von Heinz said of the film in a statement (via IndieWire). “Few of them spoke about it — and not only the victims like Edek, it was the same in Germany with the perpetrators. I wanted to talk about trans-generational trauma but also show that it can be healed if we start telling our history to each other.”
“It’s very rare, to be frank, that I’m offered a role of substance, unless I offer it to myself,” Dunham said in her own statement. “So many women, no matter their shape or size or religious or ethnic background, feel like there is a dearth of roles that honor their truth and allow them to really be part of a story and not just an accessory or cliché. To be even considered for, much less offered, a role that was about so much—including my Jewishness, which is a massive part of my personal identity and understanding of the world but is rare to see as a real aspect of a lead’s story—it’s been such a gift.”
Treasure originally premiered earlier this year at the Berlin International Film Festival. It opens everywhere else June 14.