SPECIAL EVENT — Images Festival: The Valerie Project @ Royal Cinema

Wavelength Series

Following sold-out shows in New York, Philadelphia and London, The
Valerie Project brings its haunting sounds and dreamy visuals to
Toronto in a special co-presentation with Cinematheque Ontario and Wavelength Music Arts Projects. A classic of Czech New Wave cinema, Jaromil Jireš's surrealist fantasy film, Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders (1970) receives a new soundtrack composed and performed live by 10 musicians, including members from the acclaimed Philadelphia psych folk band, Espers. Set in an undetermined Transylvanian setting, with a Pre-Raphaelite protagonist in the throes of sexual awakening, Valerie revels in an innocence-lost decadence–or a polysexual paradise regained in which "virtually every shot is a knockout" (Jonathan Rosenbaum). The alternate, lusciously chimerical soundtrack will be performed during the projection of a 35mm archival print imported from the Czech Republic especially for this one-night-only event.
–Andréa Picard, Cinematheque Ontario

Alongside Milos Forman and Vera Chytilova, Jaromil Jireš (1935—2001) was one of the first directors associated with the Czech New Wave. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, based on a novel by Vítězslav Nezval, was in a sense Jireš' last film produced in the true spirit of the New Wave, as the Soviet invasion and subsequent political changes that took place throughout the 1970s prohibited such work from getting made.

Spearheaded by Greg Weeks (Espers, Grass), Margie Wienk (Fern Knight) and Brooke Sietinsons (Espers, Grass), The Valerie Project includes harpist Mary Lattimore, cellist Helena Espvall (Espers), Vocalist Tara Burke (Fursaxa), bassist/percussionist Jesse Sparhawk (Fern Knight, Timesbold), flautist/keyboardist Jessica Weeks (Woodwose, Grass), enigmatic electronicist Charles Cohen and percussionist Jim Ayre (Fern Knight, Rake.). The Valerie Project started with a simple concept: that of recontextualising the filmic meaning and impact of a particular work through the substitution of a newly composed soundtrack. Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders is the first film in the project series.