In a dreamlike, indeterminate European landscape, a young girl named Valerie comes of age in a world where the boundaries between reality, fantasy, and nightmare constantly dissolve. As she navigates strange encounters with vampires, religious authority figures, and shifting identities, Valerie is drawn into a surreal rite of passage that feels at once erotic, threatening, and deeply symbolic. Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a cornerstone of the Czech New Wave: a lush, baroque fever dream that fuses fairy tale motifs with Gothic horror and psychoanalytic undertones. Both screenings will also include a screening of Suzan Pitt’s experimental animated short film Asparagus.

“Possessing a great spirit of liberty, deeply poetic but also emotionally intense, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders follows the initiation of young Valerie during a Carnival where the real and the surreal, life and death mingle in an enchanting whirlwind. Making a thrilling, surreal double feature with Valerie, bursting with visual surprises, Asparagus boldly plunges us into the psyche of a faceless but richly imaginative woman.” – Lucile Hadžihalilović

Our screening on Sunday 31st May will include an in-person introduction by director Lucile Hadžihalilović who has selected this film as part of her Director’s Cut series of classics. Join us for a director Q&A of her film Earwig on Saturday 30th May 5.30pm (click here to book tickets).