ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Treasure director Julia von Heinz about her new movie, which stars Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry. The emotional comedy-drama focuses on a father and daughter traveling to Poland for the first time since the father survived the Holocaust. Bleecker Street releases Treasure in theaters nationwide on June 14.
“A father-daughter road trip set in 1990s Poland, Treasure follows Ruth (Dunham), an American music journalist, and her father, Edek (Fry), a charmingly stubborn Holocaust survivor, on a journey to his homeland,” says the synopsis for Julia von Heinz’s movie. “While Ruth is eager to make sense of her family’s past, Edek embarks on the trip with his own agenda. This emotional, funny culture clash of two New Yorkers exploring post-socialist Poland is a powerful example of how reconnecting with family and the past can be an unexpected treasure.”
Tyler Treese: Julia, congrats on the movie. I found it very moving. Stephen Fry’s performance really sticks out because he is grappling with so much. It’s a man who doesn’t really want to confront the trauma that he has experienced in his past, and it’s a very natural aversion. I felt very connected to that. I think men are almost more predisposed to just try to block that out. So how was it working with him to really show that emotion and see him really grapple with the effects of the Holocaust so many years removed?
Julia von Heinz: Yeah, I agree with you about Stephen. Before I approached him, I had seen his documentary on YouTube, where he does a very similar journey, like Ruth does [in the movie]. Stephen traveled to Hungary to discover his own roots, and I could see him at a Jewish cemetery. I could see him in front of an apartment that once belonged to his family. So many elements that were similar. Then I saw him crying in that documentary, and it touched me so deeply, and I knew, wow. I mean, he brings it all. He brings the deep personal connection, he brings all the emotion, and he brings the comedy. He’s able to learn a new language, the most difficult language in the world, Polish. He can do it. I knew it, and he was willing to spend three or more months to learn that language and play Edek, which was amazing.
I was really surprised by what we see from Lena Dunham in this movie. She brings such sensitivity to the role. What made you know that she was capable of such an affecting performance? Because it really registered and it was very powerful.
I mean, again, it was that I felt there was a similarity between her and the character. I had read all of Lily Brett’s books, and in the nineties, she was that cool New York music journalist, a subculture girl with a lot of mental health issues and an eating disorder. Lena represented so many of that.
When I watched Girls, and I was her fan on Instagram. A lot of times in the findings and process, I had heard, “Ah, this film might be old fashioned, and aren’t we over it? Do we really need a film again about the Holocaust?” When I scrolled through Lena’s Instagram once in the Berlin subway, I thought, “Wow, she would be the perfect Ruth, and no one will think this is old-fashioned when she does it.” That was true after she was attached. No one asked that question. Everybody knew that would be something different than what we had seen before.
And again, I knew that she had a personal connection. What I didn’t know was how huge the personal connection was because her grandparents had lived in the same streets [that] Lily Brett’s grandparents had lived in Łódź [in Poland], and then she grew up in New York, also one block away from Lily Brett. They had basically walked the same streets in Łódź and in New York. That was such a crazy coincidence.
Yeah. That just kind of shows it was meant to be. I was reading about how you got this made and how you reached out to the author on Facebook. Then you gave an interview where you said you viewed Lena in this role. There’s been a lot of self-actualization and just being a go-getter. Can you speak to that aspect? It’s kind of remarkable that this positive attitude of yours and your willingness to reach out got this made.
I didn’t have a network really. So, yeah, with Lily, I wrote her on Facebook, and she answered three days later, sending me the email address from her agent. Then you have to keep up the energy and show you are really interested and why you are so interested.
With Lena, I was in Venice in competition in 2020, which was a huge step for me in my career. Then there was one interview with an American, I think it was Variety. It was the night of my premiere, and I knew this she might read, or she might have a Google alert, or her agent might, so I put it in the headline. I knew he would ask me, “What do you plan next?” And I said, “Oh, I have a script here, and I envisioned Lena Dunham as the main actress. Can you please put that in the headline of your article?” You can still find that article.
And you know what? The next day, the agents reached out to our company and asked for the script, and then now we share even the same agency. So that makes things so much easier.
I was looking into the original book, and I saw there was a ghost element. Did you ever consider putting that in this, or how did that go?
There were drafts with that Rudolf Höss ghost. It was difficult on many levels. First of all, the language, everybody knew he was German. Ruth wouldn’t speak German. Which actor? What language would this even be that they talk all these long, long, long dialogues that they share? So this felt totally wrong. It’s brilliant for a book, very difficult for a film. Also the long dialogue with no visual elements, it’s very difficult to transfer that to a film.
So we made together with Lily Brett a decision, maybe in the third draft, to lose that element and to focus on the father-daughter love story and their journey and the inner journey, and I think that was the right decision for a film.
I think when you first hear about a comedy-drama that deals with the after-effects of the Holocaust, you might be going, “Well, where’s the comedy coming from?” But this is done very well and appropriately. Can you talk about just finding that balance between the comedy and drama and finding some comedy in dealing with trauma?
It comes from Lily’s novel, definitely. She has that balance, which was very new to me as a German because it’s never connected to humor when we learn about it in Germany at school. So she brought that already. So we did a lot of work to bring it to the script. And this is why I really wanted Lena and Stephen. I knew they have the emotional connection, but they are comedians. They have both have the most funny humor. So I really hoped that they could bring that to the film and they did beautifully.
This was your English language debut. What was most unique about filming in a different language for this?
I mean, I noticed by directing that words are not the most difficult [or] the most important in that process. It’s not so much about words, what you tell your actors. It’s more about the atmosphere, how you reflect them, how much you love them, how much you create a space where they can try a lot and you don’t need so much language. That was an interesting experience, but it wasn’t that different from the films that I have done before.
Since this is in English, it’s gonna reach even more of an audience here overseas. It ties in thematically with two of your previous films, forming the Aftermath trilogy. How exciting is it to know that people are gonna check this out and then want to dive into some more of your past work as well?
Very exciting. They are connected. I mean, I made a film now about every generation after the Holocaust. Now the second, that is Treasure. The third, which is my generation, that was Hanna’s Journey, and the fourth [was in And Tomorrow the Entire World], the very political German left-wing activists who still feel the guilt and the responsibility to fight against rising fascism that we now experience. Yeah, I love the idea that people might look at them and because it’s something that matters for me a lot. It would be great if people saw those films. And Tomorrow the Entire World is on Netflix, so they can easily check it out.
I always love learning how titles are decided upon. How did you come up with Treasure for this film?
That was a decision that we made together with the distributor. First it was called Too Many Men, which didn’t make any sense anymore because we lost so many plot lines from the novel. Then it was called, during the whole shooting, Iron Box, that was our working title, and it reflected what they find in the end. It reflected the hearts, which are closed and closed boxes. But the distributor explained to me, and I didn’t feel that so much as a German, that this is maybe a dark or a negative title, which people might not wish to see a film with that title. I have 100% trust, of course. So together we found Treasure, which reflects so much better that it’s a film about healing, a film about something precious that they find together in Poland that they dig out of the ground. I was so happy when we found this title.
How was it working with Stephen and Lena and seeing that father-daughter dynamic that they were able to show so greatly on screen because it really feels realistic? There’s a lot of small touches that really make it resonate on screen.
I know they look like Father and daughter when you look at them together. It’s funny they look a little bit like they could be a family. That’s what I first thought when I saw them. We met for a table read. I saw them chatting for the first time, laughing, sharing their humor, and they looked like family. They really like each other.
On a set, maybe one actor sits there, and one of them sits there both in their iPhones, not those two. They were laughing and chatting and hugging and sharing jokes all the time. I have so much material from the shooting where I see them together laughing, and they transported that laugh to the screen. Of course, I couldn’t be sure, but knowing all of their work, I felt that there would be a connection.
I had read that you were working on another comedy for your next film and you were in talks with Jamie Lee Curtis. Is that still the plan to do next?
Not with her, but with another great actress now, and I can’t share yet, but I look so forward to that project. Yeah, it’s something that has no connection to Germany and it’s much lighter. I look forward because this feels very much really like my first English feature debut, and I feel ready for it.
