(Valerie a týden divů)
Directed by Jaromil Jireš
73 minutes
In Czech with English subtitles

This dreamlike story captures the story of a young Czechoslovakian girl who enters a mysterious other-world. After receiving a pair of earrings, Valerie starts to experience confusing visions of fear, hope, and anticipation. As her burgeoning sexuality kicks in, even more bizarre dreams start to come to the surface. Valerie must contend with an explosive world that both challenges and inspires her... an adventure that involves vampirism, incest, treachery, soul-robbing and eroticism.

A surreal tale in which love, fear, sex and religion mingle into one hallucinogenic world in the mind of an adolescent girl. But I must also say that the story is actually in second place to the ethereal but ravishing cinematography and moods which are the real essence of the film. Today the haunting music soundtrack is renowned as a cult classic. A real psychedelic trip fusing sounds and images, a sexual roller-coaster ride of the imagination coming from Czechoslovakia of the 70s. And let's be clear, at this moment in history Czechoslovakia was surprisingly the biggest producer of LSD in the world... so indeed this flick might have its roots partly in that experience.

''Valerie crystallizes a sense of the mystical, the ethereal and captures it to celluloid.''