The Dreamed Adventure

The winner of the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, German director Valeska Grisebach’s first feature since 2017’s Western deftly shape-shifts between genres. Yana Radeva plays Veska, a Bulgarian archeologist who runs into an old love, Said (Syuleyman Letifov), who is involved in some legally murky business dealings. When he goes missing, Veska investigates, leading to a labyrinthine border town mystery full of intrigue and local color. The Dreamed Adventure finds Grisebach once again working with a nonprofessional cast to create a film with the grit of a Western and the scope of Chinatown. One could happily get lost in the movie’s intoxicating atmosphere—or instead focus on Radeva’s layered performance as a woman enmeshed in a slow-burn thriller that she might not come out of alive. But above all, the drama creates a portrait of a little-seen world brought to vibrant life by Grisebach and actors who know the region’s riddles and dangers like the back of their weathered hands.