The Big Picture

In ‘Treasure,’ a father-daughter duo embarks on a moving journey through Poland, weaving together humor and drama with family bonding.
Co-stars Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry share a deep respect for each other, reflecting the film’s emotional depth and the connection between their characters.
This heartfelt film explores generational trauma and reconciliation, serving as a tool to discuss important issues like antisemitism and transgenerational trauma.

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 family’s 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 she’s never known to feel connected to family she’ll 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.

During this interview with Collider, Dunham, who’s also a producer on the film, and Fry declared the love they had for working with each other and how it led to a deep respect between them, how Edek reminded Fry of his grandfather, exploring the film’s mixture of emotions, how the story relates to the experience of being Jewish in America today, their own experiences exploring their real-life family legacies, and how they’ve already reunited to work together again on Too Much, the Netflix series Dunham is an executive producer, writer and director on.

Treasure (2024) In “Treasure,” a father-daughter journey unravels across post-socialist Poland. Ruth, an American music journalist, travels with her father Edek, a Holocaust survivor, to revisit his childhood haunts. As Edek struggles with reliving his traumatic past, their trip blends humor and drama, highlighting generational trauma and reconciliation.Release Date June 14, 2024 Director Julia von Heinz Runtime 112 Minutes Main Genre Drama Writers John Quester , Julia von Heinz Studio(s) Seven Elephants Expand

Stephen Fry Connected With the Comedy, Tragedy and Truth in the Story of ‘Treasure’
Image via Bleecker Street

Collider: I appreciate you both so much talking to me about this movie. It’s unfortunate that this film is as timely as it is, which honestly just makes me sad. But at the same time, the story is so beautifully told and I just really fell in love with these two, watching their relationship and the emotions of this family connection. When this came your way, was it something that you both immediately felt compelled to be a part of, or were you hesitant at all about the emotional wringer a story like this would likely put you through?

STEPHEN FRY: I saw that Lena [Dunham] was involved and that was enough. I’d walk a mile on broken glass barefoot to work with [that] woman. But also, the character they asked me to play, as soon as I read the first page, I knew him because he so reminded me of my grandfather. I thought the story was just so truthful, and it had that marvelous mixture of comedy, tragedy, pain, sorrow, reconciliation, and all those marvelous emotions. I cried reading it, I genuinely did. I thought it was beautifully written. And then, I read the novel on which it was based, and I felt the same thing. For me, it was a no-brainer. I was just so enchanted to have been asked.

LENA DUNHAM: Working with Stephen was an enormous privilege. One of the things that I love about being an artist, being an actor, being a filmmaker is that it allows you to explore emotionally thorny topics from within the relative community and safety. In the best situations, a film set is a safe community in which to explore tough, emotional things, so it felt to me like this was a journey that I needed to take. I trusted Julia [von Heinz], I trusted Stephen, and that we were going to take care of each other through the process. And I remember, right before I was leaving, my parents were like, “You know, you’re going away to do something hard. And it’s gonna be cold on top of that.” They suddenly got a little worried, and I was like, “But I’m going to be talking about something that’s important to our family history, with artists I love and respect.” I couldn’t have felt more cared for in the tough moments by Stephen. My goal was to be a net for him because he had the hardest emotional work to do in this film, I feel, and to deliver for Julia, for whom this is so personal. It really was a life-changing experience.

Lena, you not only signed on to do this, but you really jumped in with both feet with your production company, as well. Had you been looking for a project like this, or did it take a project like this to make you want to do this project?

DUNHAM: The mandate for my production company, which I run with my partner, Michael P. Cohen, has always been that we want to tell stories that are specific, thoughtful, talk about the complexity of identity, and talk about things that are hard to discuss. And we both happen to be Jewish people in America. We each have different stories about how our families immigrated here and what their relationship to the Holocaust was, but it’s always been important to us, in addition to lots of kinds of representation, to make sure that there is healthy and robust representation of Jewish people and Jewish families on screen. What we loved about this story was not just that it spoke about the very challenging and all too recent history of the Holocaust, and spoke about the issues of antisemitism, but that it spoke about transgenerational trauma in a way that felt like it went beyond just Jewish families, and could apply to so many people who have dealt with legacies of violence and persecution within their families. Unfortunately, that’s something that we’re seeing to this day. We’re seeing a rise in antisemitism. We’re also seeing a rise in Islamophobia. We’re seeing horrifying dehumanization across the board, and that is a recipe for more of the pain that Ruth and Edeck are processing. We hoped this film could be a tool to talk about some of those things.

Lena Dunham & Stephen Fry Went on a Journey to Discover Their Own Family Heritages

I really loved watching this relationship because it reminded me very much of the relationship I had with my own father because we were so different. We were never on the same page, but we both knew that we loved each other even though it was hard to express that to each other. And unlike Ruth, I’ve never been on a journey to discover my heritage. My father’s family was from Yugoslavia, but I’ve never been in that part of the world. Was that something either of you had ever done for yourself before making this, as far as exploring your own heritage and legacy in that way, or did making this film inspire you to dig deeper into your own families?

FRY: Funnily enough, some time ago, I did the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, which America then bought and now calls Finding Your Roots. And so, at the expense of the BBC, and they did all the research, I was able to travel to what is now Slovakia, but was Hungary when my grandfather grew up there, and saw the township that he grew up in and the graveyard where Nazi swastikas were sprayed. This was 15 years ago. And I went to Vienna where my grandmother and her family was taken, and then sent to the camp. I did that journey and experienced and discovered all kinds of things, and it woke up a lot of fear in me. And I know Lena has more recently done the same thing.

DUNHAM: Stephen spoke so beautifully about that fear in the BBC address that he did about antisemitism this year, which I know comforted a lot of people and changed a lot of people’s lives. I admire that he has always been willing to put a foot forward about things that are personal and challenging, in the hopes that they can ease other people’s suffering. That’s an aspect of his personality that I wouldn’t say I relate to, but I would say I aspire to. For me, in many ways, this film was that trip. Firstly, I did go to the former Yugoslavia when I was four years old, and I still remember, to this day, what a beautiful place it was. I have pictures of me holding hands with a little girl that I met by a fountain and walking around. You father is from a beautiful country, where I had an amazing trip myself when I was a child. On my own journey, I had always been told my family were Hungarian Jewish. My great-aunt, who is still living in her nineties, let us know right before I left to do this movie that actually Hungary is where our surviving family members moved post Holocaust, but our family, particularly my great grandmother Regina, who emigrated and started our family in America, was from Poland where we were shooting. Just moments before I arrived, I found out that the place I was headed was actually home in a lot of ways. And then, right after we wrapped, I did Finding Your Roots, which did not involve travel, but did involve an amazing dialogue with a historian, called Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who managed to piece together aspects of the history on my mother’s side that we absolutely never thought we would see past Ellis Island. That was an incredibly powerful experience. So, this has been a year of a lot of discovery. I am now on an email chain of 68 people with the last name Hyman, so wish me luck.

Related Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham Trauma-Bond on a Road Trip in ‘Treasure’ Trailer The film is directed and co-written by Julia von Heinz.

It was so delightful to watch you guys together in this. Are you going to work together again?

FRY: It’s already happened, thanks to Lena.

DUNHAM: I said I would hold onto him for the rest of my life on earth. I was actually writing my new show, Too Much, which I just shot for Netflix, while we were in Poland, and immediately started writing a role for Stephen. I kept saying things like, “I’m writing a part for you, but I don’t want you to feel any pressure,” only mentioning something to someone every day does, in fact, create a feeling of pressure. I was so blessed that he came to play the role. I won’t give too many clues except that he has performed my favorite dinner party scene that I have ever seen, and he manages to turn in yet another role that is comic, tragic, and Shakespearean. Getting to direct him, after performing with him, was an entirely new gift. Will Sharpe, who worked with us, basically coined my phrase which is, “Never meet your heroes, unless your heroes are Stephen Fry.” I plan to work with him until he has me banished from the country. He does have that power because he’s basically royal.

FRY: And I will say yes, every time.

Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry Have Nothing But the Highest Praise for Each Other
Image via Bleecker Street

Stephen, what was it like to see the character she had written for you?

FRY: It’s such a joy and such an honor, honestly. You should see her in her capacity as a director. It was miraculous. Everyone was so happy on the set. It was an atmosphere the likes of which I would love to experience every time, but it will never happen unless she’s at the helm. I know we’ve been blowing a lot of smoke up each other, but it is genuinely with affection.

DUNHAM: It was so special to get to work with him in such close proximity and to brag about how wonderful he was, and then to have him come to set and actually be that person. I have never experienced excitement like people had when they knew he was coming to set. And to have him leave and have their expectations met and superseded, and to get to go, “I told you so!,” was pretty fun. I was also the last person people expected to be the Stephen Fry hookup, so that’s fun to do. People aren’t expecting me to bust that one out of my Rolodex. It’s a real honor.

FRY: You’re too young to know about Rolodexes.

DUNHAM: I may be keeping a naughty one you don’t know about.

Treasure is now playing in theaters. Check out the trailer:

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