For some, a new Valeska Grisebach film is the kind of thing to be discussed in hushed tones. This year, she made her long-awaited return to Cannes, a full nine years since Western (a singular film that, by now, is within its rights to be considered a masterpiece) showed in Un Certain Regard. On top of that, Grisebach secured the competition’s ever-intriguing Friday-afternoon berth—the same slot that’s made the final day appointment viewing, having launched adventurous titles like Elle, You Were Never Really Here, La Chimera, and The Mastermind in recent years. All of this was enough, at least for me, to suggest that something special might be coming. Grisebach has delivered that.
The Dreamed Adventure, the German director’s first film in almost a decade, is both a worthy follow-up to Western and a fascinating companion piece. It’s another Bulgarian border-town fable that draws from a classic Hollywood genre. And similar to Western, it’s also a film with plenty of things to say about the collateral damage of European neoliberal policies. However, Grisebach isn’t leaning so much on the underlying themes of her previous film’s namesake here as much as the dirty deals, shadowy cover-ups, and elusive mysteries of Raymond Chandler. It doesn’t hit with the same jolt of discovery or pull you in (at least initially) with quite the same gravitational pull, but it is gradually and substantially rewarding in different ways.
At 161 minutes and with numerous scenes of overlapping dialogue (mostly set around patio tables at night), this is a film that requests your time and attention, but it builds to one of those unforgettable closing sequences that both clarifies and alchemises everything that’s preceded it. The story picks up when a local man, Said (a captivating performance by Syuleyman Letifov, whose only other credit is Western), arrives back in the town of Svilengrad to do some not-quite-legal business and quickly has his car stolen. The next day, he runs into an old squeeze, Veska (Yana Radeva), who’s overseeing an archeological dig nearby and, later that night, goes to meet an influential (and clearly greasy) businessman named Iliya (Stoicho Kostadinov) to discuss the sale of some below-the-counter diesel. While there, he has a drink and starts to dance, then—all of a sudden—vanishes from the movie.
It’s difficult to describe the off-the-cuff way Grisebach pulls this narrative rug from underneath. In those opening 20-or-so minutes, you get to know Letifov’s character not from any particular line of dialogue, but more his naturally smiling face and the gentle manner in which he walks around with a cigarette at night. You start to enjoy his easy presence so much that his ensuing absence from the film hits hard. From here, Grisebach switches POV to Veska as she begins untangling the threads that Said has left behind. The director then significantly ups the stakes by adding a curious teenage girl, Maria (Denislava Yordanova), into the mix and suggesting that she’s being groomed by one of Iliya’s men. In order to find Said and protect Maria, Veska starts ruffling some local feathers and sticking her nose where it isn’t wanted, effectively becoming a distant descendant of characters like Doc Sportello and Phillip Marlowe in the process (with some of the casual smoking and boozing to match).
One reason for the film’s strange hold is the liminal energy of Svilengrad itself: a small town in East Bulgaria that’s close to both the Greek and Turkish border—the kind of frontier where the rules of law are lax and there’s money to be made, if you know how. One of The Dreamed Adventure‘s key locations is a hotel that was once used by sex workers for the trade of passing long-haul drives (a local garage owner also comments that he used to charge two Deutschmarks just to use the bathroom), but which has recently fallen into disrepair—a point that Grisebach hammers home by leaving a “Happy New Year” banner hanging wearily above the window. The space is now occupied by a group of affable Polish women who work in a solar panel assembly warehouse nearby, and who gather to drink with the henchmen of a rival boss named The Raven. This surprisingly expansive lore is expanded on even more during those many late-night outdoor conversations, during which all kinds of drinks, jokes, and vulgarity are shared, along with the occasional breadcrumb for Veska to follow.Â
It’s in those scenes (which feel naturalistic while also being narratively precise) that Grisebach allows you to get a sense of this world, if only through the hardened ways that people have learned to process it. She also leaves the murkier details of whatever criminality is going on mostly to the imagination. Having only seen the film once, I sense that some of its deeper meanings may require a second watch, which I very much intend. Alongside all the crumbling buildings and the new-money excess, Grisebach’s use of the archeological dig and how many of the locals turn out to support it positions the film as much between the border of European concepts of East and West as it does between a tangible past and an uncertain future. It might take a little time for Grisebach to cast that spell, but its hold is firm and lasting.
The Dreamed Adventure premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.