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Director Julia von Heinz’s Treasure, a loose adaptation of Lily Brett’s novel “Too Many Men,” is a Holocaust drama centered upon father-daughter duo Edek and Ruth, whose sense of identity is intrinsically entangled with the family’s agonizing past as Holocaust survivors. The movie delineates their journey to their homeland, Poland, as an effort to reconcile with the generational trauma and mainly focuses on how the pain of being displaced, identity crises, and fear of persecution create radically different worldviews across generations. Treasure opts for a humorous tone to balance the emotionally turbulent confrontations, and even though that works well to a certain extent, it is carried forward only through a singular strain of the narrative, which ruins the effect by the end of the movie. The father-daughter chemistry, although poignantly bittersweet and occasionally endearing, feels contrived at most crucial points of the movie—much like how the...

From director Julia von Heinz and based on the novel by Lily Brett, the father-daughter story of Treasure follows Ruth (Lena Dunham) and Edek (Stephen Fry) Rothwax, as they set out on a road trip in 1990s Poland to reclaim their familys legacy. Edek is a Polish Holocaust survivor who would prefer to focus on his present life rather than be reminded of the pain and grief over loved ones lost. At the same time, Ruth is on a journey through a homeland shes never known to feel connected to family shell never meet. Initially at odds and definitely not on the same page, they ultimately come to understand each other through laughter and tears, which strengthens their own family bond.

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Lena Dunham has often explored the ennui of younger generations, satirically juxtaposed with their elders. This often exists at the intersection of class or gender difference, as well; it's something we've seen to great effect in her early classic, Tiny Furniture, and her hit show, Girls. She now finds herself exemplifying that theme in the new film Treasure, where she plays a music journalist traveling post-Soviet Poland after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Her father (an immaculate Stephen Fry) tags along on this tour of their ancestral home, from where they've been exiled ever since the Nazis' invasion and subsequent Communist takeover. They each have very different reactions.

"It's really interesting to me," said Dunham of the generational difference on display in Treasure. The father has first-hand knowledge of the horrors that took place in Poland during World War II; the...

This week's episode of the Empire Podcast invites you to settle into a pair of cracking interviews. First up, Ben Travis has a sit-down with Richard Linklater [22:48 - 42:49 approx], director of the excellent Hit Man, which is out now and available to stream over on Netflix. Then, Chris Hewitt has a bonny time with the wonderfully loquacious Stephen Fry [1:06:39 - 1:26:31 approx], whose father-daughter road-trip dramedy Treasure, based on Lily Brett's 1999 autofictive tome Too Many Men, arrives in cinemas this week.

Between the interviews then, you'll find Chris — now mercifully free of his gammy leg — back in the pod booth, running rings around Helen O'Hara and James Dyer as the team discuss the best sunglasses in the movies. There's also a tonne of movie news to digest, including the new Paddington In Peru trailer and the potentially perilous state of being for the McU's Blade after another director of the ill-fated project bit the dust this week.

Writer, actor, TV presenter and all around national treasure, Stephen Fry, stars in Julia von Heinz’s touching drama comedy about generational trauma and the holocaust. The film is based on the 1999 novel Too Many Men by Lily Brett.

Set in 1990, Treasure follows Ruth (Lena Dunham) an American music Journalist who accompanies her father Edek (Fry), a Holocaust survivor to his native Poland. While she attempts to make sense of her family’s past, her father would rather be looking to the future. This emotional, funny culture clash of two New Yorkers exploring post-socialist Poland is a powerful example of how reconnecting with family and the past can be an unexpected

treasure.

We spoke to Fry about playing the eccentric Edek and how the role reminded him of certain members of his own Jewish family. Fry also speaks about the importance of humour when broaching a subject as difficult as...

Director Julia von Heinz takes on a lot here, wrangling a lightly comedic father-daughter road-trip buddy-movie out of her adaptation of a 542-page book, unpacking generational trauma, the legacy of Auschwitz and institutionalised antisemitism. It’s a curious mix, alright. Based on Lily Brett’s 1999 autobiographical novel Too Many Men, von Heinz finds her own yo-yoing tone, as idealistic, frustrated New York journalist Ruth Rothwax (Lena Dunham) locks horns with her garrulous, over-sexed father Edek (Stephen Fry), a Holocaust survivor. To be fair, von Heinz actually streamlines the source material, losing a strand in Brett’s book in which the ghost of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss joins the pair on their trip — keeping it would quite possibly have been too much for one little movie.

A year after her mother died, keen to explore her own roots, Ruth arranges a trip to Poland to see where Edek grew up before the Nazis invaded,...

Ten minutes speaking to two subjects with whom you could easily spend an hour each is somewhat like fighting with one arm behind your back. But having interviewed Lena Dunham at length and admired Stephen Fry in a multitude of fields for years, the opportunity was too fine to pass on. It helps that they’re promoting Treasure, a strong feature on which Dunham serves as producer and star but, crucially, not writer or director; those duties fall to Julia von Heinz, who’s adapted Lily Brett’s Too Many Men into an alternately amiable and bracing vision of Holocaust survivors, their children, and the various oddities and indignities that come with extended time in Poland.

In advance of the film’s opening this Friday, I spoke to both via Zoom, Fry and Dunham calling from separate locations.

The Film Stage: Good afternoon––for me. I don’t know where you’re all calling from.

Edek (Stephen Fry) is a Holocaust survivor from Łódź who emigrated to America with his late wife after surviving the unfathomable horrors of Auschwitz. He’s boisterous, horny, and impossible to embarrass — the kind of guy who will happily sing karaoke in a crowded hotel bar and then flirt with half of the women in the audience for an encore. His daughter Ruth (Lena Dunham) is a 36-year-old music journalist from New York City whose greatest hardship in life was landing an interview with the Rolling Stones. She’s morose, severe, and shut off from the world in a way that doesn’t seem to be a symptom of her recent divorce so much as its potential root cause.

As we follow these characters throughout their fraught but funny daddy-daughter trip back to Poland, it will become clear that Edek’s brio stems from the same thing as Ruth’s...

Welcome to Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key executives and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. This week we’re talking to leading German producer Fabian Gasmia, whose credits include Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, Leos Carax’s Annette and, more recently, Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry starrer Treasure, which had its North American premiere at Tribeca last weekend. Gasmia, who set up production banner Seven Elephants in 2018 with directors Julia von Heinz, Erik Schmitt and David Wnendt, talks us through building that outfit, his “special relationship” with France and why he thinks German cinema is having a “renaissance.”

International relationships are proving more significant than ever in what is now a fragile and economically strained independent film market and Fabian Gasmia is proving to be a European partner with clout. The German producer, who recently produced Lena Dunham...

Wonky-toned story follows Dunham as a journalist visiting Poland, and Fry as her cuddly European dad, both trying to get to grips with family history

An uncomfortable experience this: a laboriously acted odd-couple heartwarmer starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry, with a sentimentality unsuited to its theme: the horrors of the Holocaust. Director and co-writer Julia Von Heinz has adapted the 1999 autobiographical novel Too Many Men by Lily Brett, whose father Max was a Holocaust survivor from the Lodz ghetto.

It is 1991 and Dunham plays Ruth, a New York journalist recently divorced, who has come to Poland to get to grips with family history. With a heavy heart she has brought along her eccentric, affectionate widower dad Edek, played by Stephen Fry in full teddy-bear mode with a cod Polish accent. The pair of them travel through the country staying at down-at-heel hotels, squabbling but of course finally and cathartically getting to know each other.

Stephen Fry, normally the embodiment of droll detachment, cuts a much earthier figure in Treasure, the new film from German writer-director Julia von Heinz. With a thick beard and scraggly gray hair, a credible Slavic accent, and a distinctly oafish slump in his large frame, Fry transforms himself into Edek Rothwax, a haunted Holocaust survivor and recent widower who, in accompanying his daughter Ruth (Lena Dunham) to his homeland of Poland in 1991, would rather flirt with translators and sing karaoke than revisit the locales of his past.

Heinz shoots Poland through a gauzy gray filter that’s almost as extreme as the hackneyed orange tint used to portray Mexico in so many thrillers that center around drug trafficking. The dreary look is certainly appropriate, though, to the depressing landscapes of ramshackle buildings, not to mention the immediately post-communist time period and lingering trauma of the Holocaust half a century earlier.

"What Jew goes to Poland as a tourist?" Bleecker Street has unveiled their official trailer for a film titled Treasure, based on a true story and adapted from the novel of the same written by Lily Brett. This initially premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival a few months ago (here's our review), and will also play at the Tribeca Film Festival soon. It's now set for a theatrical US release in June coming soon this summer. Set in the 1990s, an American journalist named Ruth travels to Poland with her father Edek to visit his childhood places and the home where he grew up. But Edek, who's a Holocaust survivor, resists reliving his trauma & sabotages the trip creating unintentionally funny situations & taking her to strange places, befriending a taxi driver. Starring Lena Dunham as Ruth & Stephen Fry as Edek, along with Zbigniew Zamachowski, Tomasz Wlosok, Wenanty Nosul, Iwona Bielska, and Maria Mamona.

Lena Dunham is back acting, this time alongside Stephen Fry for a poignant father-daughter road trip dramedy.

Dunham and Fry co-lead the upcoming feature “Treasure,” written and directed by Julia von Heinz. “Treasure” centers on a father (Fry) and daughter (Dunham) who opt to road trip through Poland while revisiting their family’s history. Fry stars as Edek, a Holocaust survivor returning to post-socialist Poland in the 1990s. Dunham plays music journalist Ruth, who learns more about her father along the way.

Dunham also produces the film, along with writer/director von Heinz and Fabian Gasmia. Thomas Jaeger, Antoine Delahousse, and Marius Wtodarski co-produce. The film is adapted from Lily Brett’s novel “Too Many Men.”

“Treasure” marks von Heinz’s third and final installment in her “Aftermath” trilogy, which centers on the aftermath effects of the Holocaust on subsequent generations. The German director previously helmed “And Tomorrow the Entire World” and “Hanna’s Journey.

In its landmark 10th season, Finding Your Roots has shown no signs of slowing down, hosting all manner of Hollywood luminaries along with viewers like you. Next up are Michael Douglas and Lena Dunham, who will unpack some family history with Henry Louis Gates Jr. on April 2.

The past was on the Girls creator mind as she worked on her latest film Treasure, Julia Heinz’s adaptation of the Lily Brett novel Too Many Men. In it, Dunham plays a journalist named Ruth who ventures to Poland with her father (played by Stephen Fry), who is a Holocaust survivor, to dig into their family’s traumatic past. Dunham’s appearance in next week’s Finding Your Roots is not as harrowing, but, as you can see in this exclusive clip, it has the potential to be just as illuminating.

When Australian writer Lily Brett published her novel Too Many Men in 2001, critics marvelled at the light, comic tone she had managed to strike in a novel about the lasting impact of the Holocaust, passed down from one generation to the next. Families have their customary jokes; they squabble over the dinner table; they may be funny characters but, underneath it all, there is a consciousness of pain. That’s not an easy balance to strike, as a writer or as an actor.

So when Julia Von Heinz came to adapt Too Many Men as a film – now called Treasure – she found an ostensible dream team in Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham, playing camp survivor Edek Rothwax and his wisecracking adult daughter Ruth on a homecoming trip to Poland. Here are two actors who are equally at home in comedy and drama, two actors who are also accomplished writers and...

After several years working in German TV and locally-oriented film projects, Julia von Heinz had a significant breakthrough with “And Tomorrow the Entire World” — a taut, punchy political thriller with a youthful spirit of anti-fascist revolt, vigorous enough to land a Venice competition slot. Its success evidently raised the status of the director’s long-held passion project, an adaptation of Australian novelist Lily Brett’s semi-autobiographical 2001 title “Too Many Men,” which reckoned thoughtfully with her parents’ experience as Auschwitz survivors, and the hereditary nature of trauma. It emerges here, in somewhat simplified form, as “Treasure,” a watchably meandering vehicle for Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry to wrestle out father-daughter conflicts both trivially universal and hauntingly specific to history. The urgency and dynamism that marked von Heinz’s last feature are largely absent; for a story of such particular and searing sorrow, it feels rather mild.

Premiering in an out-of-competition Berlinale slot,...

Set in 1991, not long after it suddenly became much easier for Holocaust survivors and their descendants to visit sites like Auschwitz-Birkenau, German-French co-production Treasure follows a father and daughter (played by Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham) making exactly this kind of voyage of remembrance. It’s adapted from the comic-tragic novel Too Many Men by Australian Lily Brett, and directed by German director Julia von Heinz, whose well-regarded previous two films (Nothing Else Matters and And Tomorrow the Entire World) also explore the aftermath of the Holocaust on later generations. So, as a package, Treasure would seem gifted with the raw material needed to make a compelling, inherently interesting work.

Alas, the film is an inept, ill-made mess — or as my grandmother would call it, a mishegoss, so muddled and misbegotten it’s hard to perform an evidential postmortem, based strictly on one viewing, of where it all goes wrong.

Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry joined filmmaker Julia von Heinz for a press conference for new tragic comedy Treasure, which debuts this weekend in the Special Gala section at the Berlin Film Festival.

As well as Dunham and Fry, the drama stars Zbigniew Zamachowski and is based on the bestselling book Too Many Men by Lily Brett. Treasure is set in 1990 following the fall of the Iron Curtain. Music journalist Ruth (played by Dunham) and her father Edek (played by Fry), a Holocaust survivor, go on a tour of his homeland of Poland. Their journey takes them to Warsaw, Łódź, Krakow and the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Ruth wants to explore her family’s history while Edek accompanies his daughter primarily to keep an eye on her. Only when the two visit the family’s former home and meet the Polish family who now live there does Edek’s attitude start to change.

When Lena Dunham first read the script for Julia von Heinz’s “Treasure,” it hit home.

The “Girls” creator’s grandmother had just died at 96, and Dunham found herself thinking a lot about her heritage. “Treasure,” based on the 1999 novel “Too Many Men” by Lily Brett, follows Ruth (Dunham), a journalist who travels to Poland with her Holocaust survivor father (Stephen Fry) to confront their family’s tragic past. Not only did Dunham agree to star in the film, but her production company, Good Thing Going, signed on as well.

Both Dunham and her producing partner, Michael P. Cohen, are Jewish and found the story “incredibly resonant for both of our families,” Dunham tells Variety at Berlin Film Festival, where “Treasure” debuts on Saturday night.

“We both looked at each other after we read the script and went like, ‘This is something we’re going to be proud to tell our children that we made.

Clint Eastwood is credited with the “one for me, one for you” rule of directing, the model of alternating between mainstream commercial productions, sometimes as an actor, and helming more personal or political fare. No one would confuse Julia von Heinz’s more commercial work with Eastwood’s Spaghetti Western performances, but the German director has taken a roughly similar path in her career, moving between popular German family films — kids’ adventure film Hanni and Nanni 2 (2012), coming-of-age comedy I’m Off Then (2015) — and more serious subjects where the subtext is politics, specifically German history and the legacy of the Holocaust.

Her 2013 feature Hanna’s Journey follows a German girl who travels to Israel and is confronted with her grandparents’ past during World War II. In And Tomorrow the Entire World, which premiered in competition in Venice in 2020 and was Germany’s official Oscar contender for best international feature, a young...

Exclusive: FilmNation Entertainment and Bleecker Street have set a June 14 U.S. theatrical release date for Julia von Heinz’s drama Treasure, which will world premiere as Special Gala presentation at the Berlin Film Festival on February 17.

Starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry, the story follows a daughter and father on a road trip in 1990s Poland. Check out a first-look clip above.

Dunham plays Ruth, an American music journalist who joins her her father, Edek (Fry), a charmingly stubborn Holocaust survivor, on a journey to his homeland. While Ruth is eager to make sense of her family’s past, Edek embarks on the trip with his own agenda.

Treasure is based on the bestselling autobiographical novel Too Many Men by Lily Brett. Von Heinz also co-wrote the film with frequent collaborator John Quester.

This is the third and final addition to von Heinz’s “Aftermath Trilogy,” following 2013’s Hanna’s Journey,...

Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham are father and daughter in the first look at Treasure. The 1990s-set road trip pic will see the unlikely duo travel through post-communist Poland. The Hollywood Reporter has shared the first image from the film, depicting a gray-bearded Fry sharing a wry glance with Dunham. An adaptation of Lily Brett's 1999 novel Too Many Men, the film will follow American writer Ruth (Dunham) and her Holocaust survivor father Edek (Fry) as they travel through Poland seeking to understand their shared past. Along the way, Ruth tries to get Edek to come to terms with his traumatic experiences during the war, but he stubbornly refuses, resulting in several tragi-comic situations. The film will also star Polish actor Zbigniew Zamachowski, star of Krzysztof Kieślowski's acclaimed Three Colours: White. The film will debut at the Berlin Film Festival in February and is slated to be released worldwide...

“Treasure,” a father-daughter road trip drama starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry, has sold worldwide rights to Bleecker Street and FilmNation Entertainment.

The movie, formerly titled “Iron Box,” will have its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Bleecker Street and FilmNation Entertainment, which recently teamed on “Waitress: The Musical,” will co-distribute the movie theatrically later this year in the U.S. and across the globe.

Julia Von Heinz directed “Treasure” and adapted the screenplay with John Quester. Based on Lily Brett’s novel “Too Many Men,” the 1990s-set story follows American music journalist Ruth (Dunham) and her father Edek (Fry), a Holocaust survivor, on a journey to his homeland of Poland.

As described in the press release, “While Ruth is eager to make sense of her family’s past, Edek embarks on the trip with his own agenda. This emotional, funny culture clash of two New Yorkers exploring post-socialist...

FilmNation Entertainment and Bleecker Street are teaming up on the worldwide release of Julia von Heinz’s Berlinale Special Gala selection Treasure (formerly Iron Box) starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry.

The road trip film takes place in 1990s Poland as American music journalist Ruth and her charming, stubborn Holocaust survivor father Edek take a trip to his homeland.

As Ruth tries to make sense of her family’s past, Edek embarks on the trip with his own agenda.

The film is the third in von Heinz’s ‘Aftermath Trilogy’ exploring the legacy of Germany’s Nazi past following 2013’s...

FilmNation Entertainment and Bleecker Street will partner on the worldwide release of Treasure (fka Iron Box), a road trip pic starring Lena Dunham (Girls) and Stephen Fry (The Sandman) that’s set to world premiere as a special gala presentation at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

An adaptation of Lily Brett’s bestselling autobiographical novel Too Many Men from director Julia von Heinz (And Tomorrow the Entire World), the film will be the first to be co-distributed globally by the two companies, which have previously collaborated on Waitress: The Musical, as well as Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience. It’s the third part of Von Heinz’s “Aftermath Trilogy,” examining the legacy of Germany’s Nazi past, on the heels of 2013’s Hanna’s Journey and Germany’s official 2020 Oscar entry, And Tomorrow the Entire World.

The story takes place in 1990s Poland and follows Ruth (Dunham), an American music journalist,...

FilmNation Entertainment and Bleecker Street will partner on Treasure, the new drama from German director Julia von Heinz (And Tomorrow the Entire World) starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry as father and daughter. The two companies will co-distribute the film together in the U.S. and jointly handle worldwide sales.

Set in the 1990s, Treasure is adapted from Lily Brett’s best-selling autobiographical novel Too Many Men. Dunham plays Ruth, a neurotic businesswoman who takes her father Edek (Fry), a charmingly stubborn Holocaust survivor, on a road trip through Poland to make sense of her family’s past. Zbigniew Zamachowski (Three Colors franchise) co-stars. Treasure will have its world premiere as a Berlinale Special screening at the Berlin Film Festival next month and FilmNation and Bleecker will kick off sales talk with international buyers at Berlin’s European Film Market.

Von Heinz is best known for her political drama And Tomorrow the Entire World,...

The festival has revealed titles set to play in Berlinale Special, Generation and Forum Expanded.

Johan Renck’s Spaceman starring Adam Sandler and Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo starring Hunter Schafer are to receive their world premieres at the upcoming Berlin International Film Festival (February 15-25).

The festival has revealed a raft of titles set to premiere in its Berlinale Special strand as well as in its Generation competition and Forum Expanded sections.

The seven newly announced titles in Berlinale Special also includes Jula von Heinz’s Treasure, starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry; David and Nathan Zellner’s Sasquatch Sunset...

Stephen Fry has joined the cast of “Iron Box,” a multi-generational comedy about a New York businesswoman who journeys with her father to Poland in an effort to explore their roots.

The film is being directed by Julia Von Heinz, best known for her work on “And Tomorrow the Entire World” and “Isolation.” Principal photography begins this month. Zbigniew Zamachowski (“Three Colors: White”) has also joined the cast. The package is coming together for the European Film Market (EFM) at Berlin.

Fry is an actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director and bon vivant. He starred to great acclaim as Oscar Wilde in “Wilde” and teamed memorably with Hugh Laurie on “A Bit of Fry and Laurie,” “Jeeves and Wooster” and “Blackadder.” On screen, Fry’s credits include “V for Vendetta,” “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Hobbit” series. He recently appeared on Hulu’s “The Dropout.” He...

Mandy Patinkin and Lena Dunham have joined German filmmaker Julia von Heinz’s next film, “Iron Box,” about a New York businesswoman who decides to take her aging father back to his native Poland, where she hopes to explore her Jewish roots.

In an interview with Variety during last year’s Venice Film Festival following the premiere of her latest pic, “And Tomorrow the Entire World,” von Heinz said she planned to send Patinkin and Dunham the script and expressed hope that they would do the film, an adaption of Australian writer Lily Brett’s bestselling novel “Too Many Men.”

The article led to meetings between von Heinz and Patinkin and Dunham.

Von Heinz also shared her current film with the actors. The critically acclaimed pic, about an idealistic student who joins an Antifa collective to fight the fascist menace of neo-Nazism spreading across Germany, has been selected to represent...

Antifa is a way of life, a belief, and to criminalize it is itself criminal, according to Julia von Heinz.

The German director’s latest film, “And Tomorrow the Entire World,” just premiered in competition in Venice, where it wowed critics with a very personal story about young left-wing activists fighting what they see as a fascist threat to their country. It was also presented in Toronto as part of European Film Promotion’s European Highlights of 2020.

“Antifa is not a group with a membership card,” von Heinz told Variety. “Antifa is an opinion and something you live. Antifa means I’m antifascist. Who would not agree on that?”

Right-wing politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have criticized the so-called antifa movement, which has no centralized organization, with U.S. President Donald Trump going so far as saying the U.S. will be designating it as a “terrorist organization.