Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

CZECHOSLOVAK CLASSICS: Classics from the unrivalled history of Czechoslovak cinema. Screening throughout September and October at De Uitkijk.

Valerie, a Czechoslovakian teenage girl living with her grandmother, puts on a pair of magical earrings and finds herself in a sensual fantasy world full of vampires, witchcraft and mysticism. The travelling circus that has set up camp in her village turns out to offer more than just innocent entertainment… VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970) presents an endlessly repeating, non-linear fairy tale, set in a quasi-medieval landscape. Beautifully filmed, with enchanting music and brimming with surrealist fantasies. VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS is a rarity from the late Czechoslovak New Wave, a period in which the movement’s typical social criticism was heavily censored, but when there was still room for magic.