FilmNation Entertainment and Bleecker Street will partner on the worldwide rights to Treasure (formerly Iron Box) from award-winning writer-director Julia von Heinz (And Tomorrow the Entire World, Hanna’s Journey) and starring award-winning actors Lena Dunham (“Girls”, Catherine Called Birdy) and Stephen Fry (“The Sandman”, “The Dropout”) as father and daughter. After successful collaborations on Waitress: The Musical this past December and on Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience, the two companies will, for the first time together, co-distribute the film later this year in the U.S. and throughout the world.
The film also stars Zbigniew Zamachowski (Three Colors franchise, A Night at the Kindergarten). Based on the best-selling autobiographical novel Too Many Men by Lily Brett, von Heinz re-teamed with John Quester (And Tomorrow the Entire World) to co-write the screenplay. The film will premiere in the Berlinale Special Gala section of this year’s Berlin Film Festival this February.
A father-daughter road trip set in 1990s Poland, Treasure follows Ruth (Dunham), an American music journalist, and 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. 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. The film is the third part of von Heinz’s “Aftermath Trilogy”, following 2013’s Hanna’s Journey and And Tomorrow the Entire World, which was Germany’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 2020 Academy Awards. Through all three films, von Heinz explores the legacy of Germany’s Nazi past in very different ways.
The film is produced by Fabian Gasmia and Von Heinz under their Seven Elephants banner, and Dunham under her Good Things Going banner. Executive Producers include Glen Basner and Ben Browning on behalf of FilmNation Entertainment alongside Bleecker Street’s Andrew Karpen and Kent Sanderson and Good Thing Going’s Michael Cohen. FilmNation is also handling international sales.
Dunham is represented by CAA, ID Public Relations, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush, Kaller, Gellman, Meigs & Fox. Fry is represented by CAA in the US and Hamilton Hodell in the UK. von Heinz is represented by CAA in the US and Players Agentur Management in Germany.
Recent releases for FilmNation include John Carney’s critical darling Flora and Son starring Eve Hewson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails starring Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White; both films were released by Apple Original Films. Upcoming features include Sean Baker’s Anora starring Mikey Madison to be released by NEON in North America, Academy Award winner Edward Berger’s Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini with Focus Features and Pamela Adlon’s comedy Babes starring Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau to be released by NEON in the US.
Bleecker Street recently acquired the U.S. rights to Rumours with Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander, and David and Nathan Zellner’s Sasquatch Sunset, premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival this week, both produced by Ari Aster’s Square Peg banner. Additional acquisitions include James Hawes’ One Life starring Academy Award®-winner Anthony Hopkins, and Ezra from director Tony Goldwyn, both of which had their world premieres in TIFF; the U.S. rights to British comedy Fackham Hall starring Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Thomasin McKenzie, Katherine Waterston, and Emma Laird; and the UK rights to Hayao Miyazaki’s lauded film, The Boy and the Heron, which was recently release. Bleecker recently released Sara Bareilles’ Waitress: The Musical and the upcoming slate includes Out of Darkness, a Stone Age-set thriller which will be released February 9 and Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s space station-set thriller I.S.S, which is opening this weekend.
