| Treasure | |
| Director: | Julia von Heinz |
| Cinematography: | Daniela Knapp |
| Editing: | Sandie Bompar |
| Runtime: | 112 minutes |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $743,190[1] |
Treasure is a 2024 tragicomedy film directed by Julia von Heinz. Based on the 1999 novel Too Many Men by Lily Brett, the film stars Lena Dunham, Stephen Fry and Zbigniew Zamachowski. Set in 1990, it tells the story of an American journalist Ruth who travels to Poland with her father Edek to visit his childhood places. But Edek, a Holocaust survivor, resists reliving his trauma and sabotages the trip creating unintentionally funny situations.[2]
It was selected in the Berlinale Special Gala section at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival and was screened on 17 February 2024.[3] The film was released in the United States on June 14, 2024 by Bleecker Street in co-partnership with FilmNation Entertainment.[4]
Initially titled Iron Box, the film is directed by Julia von Heinz who also wrote the screenplay with John Quester, and is produced by Seven Elephants and Good Thing Going.[5]
The film was shot from 21 February 2023 to 7 May 2023 in Germany at Berlin, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and in Poland. 18 of the 39 days of filming took place in central Germany in spring 2023. The main filming location in the region was Halle (Saale).[6]
Treasure had its world premiere on 17 February 2024, as part of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, in Berlin Special Gala.[7] [8] Prior to its world premiere, FilmNation Entertainment and Bleecker Street acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film in January 2024.[9]
The film was released on 14 June 2024 theatrically by Bleecker Street.[10]
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 36% based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7/10.[11]
Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph rated the film 2/5, and wrote: "Sombre, sluggish and usually on the right side of respectable, Julia von Heinz’s film eventually bottles its task, coming to mollifying conclusions about the 20th century’s starkest horrors."[12]
Leslie Felperin, reviewing the film for The Hollywood Reporter, dubbed it as "Oy gevalt!", and opined: "So muddled and misbegotten it’s hard to perform an evidential postmortem, based strictly on one viewing, of where it all goes wrong."[13]
Wendy Ide reviewing the film at the Berlinale, wrote in ScreenDaily: "Treasure is a curiously inert work, a film that feels as emotionally grey and underlit as its cinematography."[14]
Ben Rolph in AwardsWatch graded the film C, and wrote: "Dunham’s connection to the story cannot save her stilted line delivery, every word feels forced as if just read off the page giving a frustrating lack of authenticity in her performance."[15]