Valerie and Her Week of Wonders’ dreamlike visuals, psychedelic sounds and odd plot twists (Incest! Vampires! Lecherous priests!) make it the very definition of a cult film. Jaromil Jires’ buried treasure of Czech surrealist/erotic/horror cinema from 1970 is the type of film that gets passed around like a hard-to-find vinyl LP by film geeks worldwide and, in the last few years, it’s slowly gained a small community of rabid fans committed to preserving it.

Not unlike the original Wicker Man soundtrack—a score that’s a touchstone for many contemporary folk, psychedelic and electronic artists—Lubos Fiser’s odd and effective score to Valerie has inspired a wide range of musicians. Trish Keenan of psych-pop band Broadcast borrowed the opening theme’s delicate, nursery rhyme-like melody for one of the highlight tracks on 2003’s Haha Sound and big-name electronic musician Andy Votel worked for nearly 12 years to unearth the film’s original soundtrack, recently issued on hip U.K. label Finders Keepers. 

It’s the The Valerie Project, however, that proves to be the film’s ultimate fan-geek tribute. The 10+ members of this collective from Philadelphia were so smitten with Valerie that they created an entirely new soundtrack to be played live alongside a 35mm print of the subtitled film.

“Joseph Gervasi and I had been talking about doing a synergistic film/music project for some time, and both of us brought up Valerie,” explains Greg Weeks of the psych-folk ensemble Espers and The Valerie Project’s leader. “It so happened that Joseph owned a 16mm print of the film. I was obsessed with how relevant the film was to certain subcultural movements of the time, not to mention blown away by its dreamlike imagery, old-world purity, psychedelic candor and mesmerizing soundtrack.”

Weeks enlisted help from both his current band Espers, as well as a range of people from Philadelphia’s vibrant psych and folk scenes, to create a tapestry of sound inspired by the original soundtrack and their own interpretation of the film. In particular, the film’s themes of lost innocence and pastoral living struck a chord with Weeks and his fellow players.

“There’s a current movement towards responsible living. The folk and psychedelic folk/experimental musics that have been evolving from the mid ’90s are a direct correlation to a need and desire to reorient to a world that is too chaotic, too oppressive, too technologically stifling,” says Weeks. “It’s a new version of the ‘back to the land’ phenomenon of the late ’60s/early ’70s—only with lessons learned. Valerie taps into so much of that. It projects a political and cultural message that is all the more relevant today.”

March 10 & 11, Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Ave. (at E. 2nd St.), 212-505-5181; 8, $12/$10 (for students & members).