International Festival of Independent Cinema Mastercard OFF CAMERA 2024 starts in less than three weeks. It has just been revealed that the opening film of this year's edition will be a German-French production “Treasure”, which was shot mainly in Poland. The European premiere of the film with the participation of the creators, including the director herself, Julia von Heinz, will take place on April 26 at the Kijów cinema in Krakow.
They play the main characters of the production Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry. We will also see on the screen Zbigniew Zamachowski, Tomasz Włosok and Sandra Drzymalska. The music for the film was created by the duo: Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz and Mary Komasa.
The film by German director Julia von Heinz is based on a true story described in the best-selling autobiographical novel by Lily Brett. The star of the series “Girls” was interested in her Lena Dunham, to such an extent that she not only plays one of the two main roles, but is also the film's producer.
She plays music journalist Ruth, who, shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain, travels from New York to Poland with her father (played by the famous British actor Stephen Fry), following in the footsteps of his Jewish roots. For a Holocaust survivor, it is a return after many years to the places he decided to leave after World War II. The road full of emotions and emotions leads through Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków to the place with which Edek's most painful memories are associated, i.e. the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
The guide of the two heroes in the newly emerging Poland is a charming taxi driver (Zbigniew Zamachowski), and other people he meets by accident help him fulfill the plan that the older man has planned for himself during the journey. “Treasure” is a story full of warm humor about the search for identity, family ties, an attempt to come to terms with the past and… the titular treasure.
Julia von Heinz, born on June 3, 1976 in West Berlin, is a renowned German film director and screenwriter. Her career began working as a personal assistant for director and professor Rosa von Praunheim at the Konrad Wolf Film University in Babelsberg. von Heinz's debut feature film, Nothing Else Matters, premiered at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival, winning acclaim at numerous international festivals. Then she made the documentary “Standesgemäß” (2008), and in 2012 she released the children's film “Hanni & Nanni 2”, based on a series of novels by Enid Blyton, which was a huge success in cinemas.
Working with directors such as Tom Tykwer, Chris Kraus, Robert Thalheim and Axel Ranisch, she created the documentary “Pink Children” (2012). In the same year, von Heinz obtained her PhD in film and began teaching at the University of Television and Film in Munich. While continuing his teaching work, he does not stop creating films. Her biggest international success so far is “And Tomorrow the Whole World” (2020) – a film in which she talked about her own teenage experiences in the Antifa movement.