In its U.S. premiere in the Main Slate section of the 64th NYFF, Valeska Grisebach’s Cannes Jury Prize-winning film turns from an initial easy set up to a thriller with chilling moments of suspense. Full of twists and turns, Griebach defies narrative stereotypes and allows the authenticity of the local townspeople she uses to create tension, suspense and surprise.

Interestingly, The Dreamed Adventure begins like a Spaghetti Western (without Ennio Morricone’s music) in a setting lost to the modern age and peopled with gristled, thuggish looking types. There, a stranger drives into a scruffy town in a small car without air conditioning to do business. Initially, Grisebach features a middle-aged, craggy-looking, Said (Syuleyman Alilov Letifov) as the protagonist. The filmmaker follows this rugged mystery man’s actions in Svilengrad, a Bulgarian border town at the crossroads of Turkey and Greece. With a slow unraveling of action Griebach keeps us questioning the why and what of the set up with Said.

First, the filmmaker reverses the “hero” trope. When Said attempts to settle business with someone in the town, staying overnight to wait for him, an unknown thug steals his car. Though malevolent forces victimize him and make him helpless, he remains poker-faced and unemotional. Perhaps, the cronies of the man he waits for game him.

Then, the fates step in and he sees middle-aged Veska, an old flame (the sterling Yana Radva). An archeologist Veska currently works at a site in Matochina. After hearing about the theft, she suggests he help her on her dig. On the journey to the ancient site they reacquaint themselves. However, he reveals little information. With natural pauses and looks, we realize they had been together years before and may still have a bond. Said (a Muslim) references his life under Soviet era repression. In a peek beyond the veil, when he explains his parents changed his name to fit in and make it Bulgarian”acceptable” we note his ironic annoyance. Perhaps, this and later information we overhear about his possibly “disappearing” a bullying young man explain why he left the area.

As an omen of good luck, Said fixes Veska’s metal detector. This enables her to find a valuable artifact. Though we expect them to stay together, the filmmaker shifts the narrative’s direction.

In a surprising twerk, Said lopes off with another younger woman he meets in a bar after Veska drops him off. Swapping out Said, Grisebach turns the homespun, sharp-eyed, prescient Veska into the film’s protagonist. When Said disappears, we presume he carries on with the woman he met. However, we never find out what happens afterward. When he doesn’t show up for the dig the following morning, an upset Veska searches for him unobtrusively. Perhaps he faces danger.

Thus, in a relaxed way, she visits with the townspeople, in the cafe, the bar and in after-dinner get-togethers with women and men at their homes to find out what happened to Said. The groups connect with one another over smokes, drinks and conversation. In a fascinating contrast between the women’s and men’s groups, the cast (some locals with un-Hollywood-like faces) reveal the culture of this non-thriving border town.

The women discuss disappearances, and we understand how the town’s ripe position on the border promotes human trafficking. The men flirt with Veska and apologize for being “raunchy,” as she teases them and flirts back. Gradually, she discovers the criminal network’s theft of diesel, a payment needing to be made and the conflict between two criminal leaders vying for each other’s turf. Certainly, the patriarchy rules the town, but Veska rises above it cannily to search for Said, alive or dead.

As Veska continues on her journey, we realize she understands and manipulates the groups and can do this because fundamentally she participates in some way. As an observant anti-hero, she keeps a compromised morality and avoids sanctimonious self-righteousness to survive. Rather than to take the moral high ground, she blends in and gets along. If necessary, regarding the men in her past, apparently she used them sexually and allowed them to use her. In fact romantically she hooked up with one of the mafia locals. However, when another, younger group of men warn her to stop nosing around, she “plays it close to the vest” and leaves.

With each encounter, Grisebach ratchets up the tension. Hearing about about a package mentioned in conversation, Veska cleverly follows up and finds a gun and stashes it in her car. It comes in handy when a drunk young woman, followed by a group of young men after they leave a party, gets into a dicey situation. Veska safeguards her, a protector figure, challenging our impressions of her.

Toward the conclusion of Veska’s journey digging up the crime syndicate, our expectations twist once more toward surprise. Indeed, to help Said’s financial situation, she gives herself over to an unlikely, unappealing crony of the criminal network. Grisebach turns the idea of a romantic sexual encounter Hollywood style on its head. Instead, she crafts the situation between Veska and the crony, both older adults, not typically visited by filmmakers, into a realistic encounter. The scenes are refreshing, unexpected. Somehow Veska seems all the more attractive in comparison to her sexual partner. Memorable irony.

By the conclusion we discover Veska literally and figuratively “comes out on top.” After an adventurous time, she finds her man, Said, and their exchange ends in the next encounter they have with each other, which we never get to see. Grisebach concludes in Svilengrad as if nothing really happened. Everything stays covered up with lives on the border who struggle to survive.

Grisebach gives an amazing portrait of a time place and characters which are more real than most films could ever achieve. For the write up at NYFF 2026 go to their website https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2026/films/the-dreamed-adventure/