The Fakers

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Movie
Original title The Fakers
Country of production Austria , Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2007
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Stefan Ruzowitzky
script Stefan Ruzowitzky
production Josef Aichholzer ,
Nina Bohlmann ,
Babette Schröder
music Marius Ruhland
camera Benedict Neuenfels
cut Britta Nahler
occupation

Die Fälscher is an Austrian-German feature film . The film, directed by the director and screenwriter Stefan Ruzowitzky , is based on real events and deals with the National Socialists' largest counterfeiting program during the Second World War , Aktion Bernhard .

The premiere of the film took place at the Berlinale 2007 . The cinema release in Germany was on March 22nd, 2007, in Austria the day after. In February 2008, the film won the Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Film - it was the first ever Oscar for an Austrian contribution. The film was released on DVD in Germany on October 1, 2007 and in Austria on October 10, 2008 as number 101 of the edition Der Austrian Film . In German free TV, Die Fälscher was first seen on January 28, 2009 on ZDF .

action

Karl Markovics , Andreas Schmidt , Adolf Burger and August Diehl at the premiere of the film at the Berlinale 2007

A run-down man wants to rent a room in a luxury hotel in Monte-Carlo . When the skeptical porter asked, he pulled a thick wad of money with dollar bills out of a pocket. Later, the man has new clothes and shaves and visits the casino. He meets a woman there and spends the night with her. With horror, the woman notices a tattooed number on the man's forearm that reveals him as a survivor of Auschwitz .

Flashback: In Berlin in 1936, Salomon Sorowitsch is a figure of the half- and underworld. He earns a living by forging ID cards, documents and money. In the end he is arrested by the Berlin detective Herzog and taken to the Mauthausen concentration camp . There he used his skills as a painter to get discounts for the SS camp management . Five years later he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . While traveling in a cattle wagon , he meets the Soviet prisoner Kolja and shares his food ration with him. In Sachsenhausen, Sorowitsch, Kolja and a few other prisoners are received separately in a hall. They are greeted by the former detective Herzog, who now heads the " Operation Bernhard " with the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer : Their aim is to forge foreign currency on a large scale. The inmates were apparently selected for the clandestine operation based on their skills.

The prisoners who work as counterfeiters are relatively privileged to work and live in a separate area of ​​the concentration camp. They are better looked after and are allowed to shower once a week. Yet they too are harassed and permanently threatened with death. If they fail to complete the missions, their end is near. First of all, British pound notes must be forged. For a long time this failed because of the wrong paper. Sorowitsch has an idea how the original paper can be imitated better. A German agent then travels to Zurich and has the counterfeit notes checked in a bank. This cannot detect a forgery. He also has the Bank of England check the authenticity of the flowers . Herzog is enthusiastic about Sorowitsch and the other forgers, flatters them and occasionally supplies them with cigarettes. If Herzog is absent, his deputy Oberscharführer Holst leads an arbitrary regime, beats and occasionally kills fellow prisoners.

The next job is to counterfeit US dollar bills. This will not succeed for months. The initially jovial Duke now increases the pressure. His career is at stake and he is asked from Berlin to finally deliver the wrong dollar bills. Finally, the suspicion grows that someone among the counterfeiters is sabotaging the project. One of the prisoners, the communist Burger, also admits this to his fellow prisoners. He is against supplying the Third Reich with counterfeit money, which would only prolong the war. The pressure on burgers grows when Herzog selects five prisoners who will have to die if the dollar bills cannot be forged within four weeks. At the last moment, Sorowitsch reports that the forgery was successful. Herzog is enthusiastic, at the same time he already knows that the end of the war is near. Suddenly he reveals himself to Sorowitsch as a former communist and says that now it is important to focus on the future. Sorowitsch provided him with Swiss papers. Eventually the Allies draw closer and the guards flee. Sorowitsch lets Herzog escape, but takes his "private supply" of dollar blossoms. The counterfeiters are confronted with the other, non-privileged prisoners of the concentration camp: starved figures who have armed themselves. They initially mistook the normally nourished forgers for members of the SS. But tattoos on the arms of some forgers prove that they were imprisoned in Auschwitz.

Back in Monte Carlo, Sorowitsch is back at the card table. You see his cards, four aces. Despite his sure victory, he puts the cards down and stands up. He then takes all his money out of his safe, goes back to the casino and goes to the roulette table. There he wagers his entire fortune indiscriminately until he has one chip left at the end, which he hands over to the croupier for the Tronc . In the final scene he is sitting on a bench on the beach with the woman from the beginning of the film, she says regretfully: “All that money!” In the last shot, they dance on the beach at dawn, she repeats: “All that money!” Sorowitsch replies : "We can do something new."

background

The film is based on the memories of Adolf Burger about the real history of the largest counterfeiting campaign by the National Socialists during the Second World War, which was carried out under the code name “ Aktion Bernhard ”. Towards the end of the war, the devices and materials for counterfeiting as well as boxes with counterfeit money were sunk in the Austrian Toplitzsee and only found years later. When asked whether he had a special interest in National Socialism, the director and screenwriter Stefan Ruzowitzky said with regard to his home country Austria: “If you live in a country where the right-wing populist parties FPÖ and BZÖ with their unbearable ideological proximity to National Socialist thinking are constant To win around 20% of the electorate and just as unbearably even participate in the government, one has the urgent need to deal with such a topic. "

The names of the historical persons depicted, except for Adolf Burgers, were changed for the film, since all but him had already died and could no longer be asked for their consent. The main role Salomon Sorowitsch is based on the Russian artist Salomon Smolianoff , who fled from Russia to Berlin during the revolutionary turmoil in 1917 and there began to forge British pound notes because he could not survive on his income as an artist alone. He was arrested in 1936 and sentenced to four years in prison, after which he was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. The role of Sturmbannführer Friedrich Herzog is based on Bernhard Krüger , the former head of the fight against counterfeiters.

The actor August Diehl prepared for his role through long conversations with Adolf Burger. In the TV show "Gero von Boehm encounters ..." he said that it was more difficult for him to access the role of the victim than that of the SS member in The Ninth Day . "The feeling of power and exercise of power and feeling great about yourself and serving in a system where you have something to say, I know that more, let me say, than being a victim in a concentration camp."

production

The film is a coproduction by Wiener Aichholzer Film with the German Magnolia Filmproduktion and Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures .

The production costs are between 3.5 and 4.2 million euros, depending on the information.

The film was shot between March and May 2006 in Vienna , Monte Carlo , Brandenburg and Potsdam . The majority of the shooting, especially the recordings in and around the barracks of the concentration camp, were made in the backdrops in the studios and outside areas of Studio Babelsberg .

The film is distributed by Universum Film (Germany) and Filmladen (Austria) and is distributed internationally by Beta Cinema , the production company that already distributed the Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others .

The film was originally supposed to be called The Forger . In the first funding decisions of the Austrian Film Institute on May 25, 2004 (project development / project funding, 31,800 euros) and on May 24, 2005 (production funding / project funding, no funding limit specified), the film was given this title and a description of a main person - the forger - stated.

National assignment

In the Austrian-German co-production agreement , the national allocation of a film is tied to the country of the “main producer”, i.e. the production company that pays the majority of the production costs. Deviations from this allocation rule, e.g. for the purpose of festival submissions, can be contractually agreed. However, this, as well as the exact amount and distribution of the production costs, is not known. In addition, there are film subsidies from both countries as well as from the EU, which dilute the distribution of the actual costs. In interviews with the German magazine Stern , the director and one of the producers of Magnolia Film stated that half of the film was financed with Austrian and German funds and that national allocation is therefore a matter of opinion. Official bodies and film databases in Germany and Austria identify the film either as a German production with an Austrian co-production or vice versa.

Grants

The film received numerous grants in the production countries and from the EU for its production and, in some cases, also for distribution. The film received around 1.74 million euros for production in Austria. Austrian sponsors were the State Film Institute (526,600 euros committed, 461,214 disbursed), the City of Vienna Film Fund (468,200 euros committed, 427,969 disbursed), the state of Upper Austria (funding in the mid double-digit 10,000 range approved) and the state of Lower Austria (50,000 euros committed and paid).

Funding from Germany came from the Hamburg Film Fund , the FilmFinanzierungsFonds Hessen-Invest (loan of 65,000 euros), the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (5,000 euros for the festival presence at the Berlinale 2007) and the state FFA (60,000 euros distribution funding). The public television broadcasters ORF (within the framework of the film / television agreement , 696,000 euros) and ZDF also contributed financially.

The EU funded the film as part of its MEDIA program, among other things, with 407,000 euros in sales funding - this corresponds to more than half of the total sales funding of 710,000 euros for Austrian films in 2007. This money was used to distribute the film in the ten countries of Denmark , Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Spain, United Kingdom and Hungary. In total, Die Fälscher was funded with 655,000 euros from the MEDIA program.

Audio film

For television broadcasts, ZDF created an audio description of the film in 2009 , which was nominated for the German Audio Film Award in 2010 . The image descriptions are spoken by Uta Maria Torp.

reception

Gross profit

The film grossed around 19 million US dollars worldwide, including around 5.5 million dollars (with 623,802 visitors) in the USA, the most successful sales market. Spain made the second largest contribution to total box office income with the equivalent of 3.9 million US dollars (434,000 visitors), followed by Austria (1.8 million / 190,000 visitors), Australia (1.4 million), the rental market of Great Britain, Ireland and Malta (together around 1.3 million), Mexico (0.8 million), Germany (0.6 million) and Japan (0.5 million).

The film was included in many cinemas again or for the first time after winning the Oscar. In Austria Die Fälscher tripled its number of visitors from less than 60,000 visitors before March 2008 to 190,027 visitors by the end of August 2008. In Germany, 84,824 people have seen the film so far - significantly fewer than other Austrian-German co-productions such as Free Rainer (150,000 admissions) or the documentary Am Limit (190,000 admissions).

Awards

Reviews

  • Der Standard , Bert Rebhandl, March 23, 2007: “Ruzowitzky staged a very effective moral duel: here the agile Sorowitsch, there the upright burger. On the other hand, the tormentors: In addition to the decadent Duke, it is overseer Holst (Martin Brambach) who does not lack sadism and who often looks like a caricature of all ugly Nazis in film history. […] Ruzowitzky as a director is shaped by newer aesthetics. The forger is often shot with a handheld camera (Benedict Neuenfels), important scenes are emphasized by manipulating the sound, in some places one could think of an MTV version of Schindler's list, then again of films like Gillo Pontecorvo's Kapo from the 1950s and Sixties, when people didn't really think about the representation of the concentration camps. This carelessness is also characteristic of Ruzowitzky. With Die Fälscher he is orienting himself towards an old-fashioned form of European cinema, which actually seemed to be historical, but which is being brought up to date with new technical refinements. "
  • Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 22, 2007: “As invitingly ludicrous as the plot sounds, the film looks so conventional: desaturated colors, sparse storage rooms and a staff who hardly ever gets beyond the rough typing. Stefan Ruzowitzky does too little to give the spectacular material an exciting shape. After an hour the film has lost its suspense. "
  • Die Zeit , Susanne Schmetkamp, ​​March 22, 2007: “A very direct narrative style and an aesthetic of the present created by Benedict Neuenfels' agile hand-held camera draw the viewer into the action without ever crossing the border to cinema of concern. And the fact that the conflicts can be read in the faces and in the body language is not only due to the acting, but also to this extremely attentive camera. It captures the smallest details. "
  • Lexicon of the International Film : "A theater-like staged, dramatically outstanding drama based on historically guaranteed events, which puts the conflict of conscience of its protagonists at the center of the plot, but contains a clear partisanship itself."
  • kino.de : “Stefan Ruzowitzky's (“ Anatomie ”) gripping drama is based on a true story. On the one hand it uses the claustrophobic narrowness of the locations to create tension, but on the other hand it gets to the bottom of fundamental moral questions. With Karl Markovics and August Diehl top-class cast, "Die Fälscher" may tell a story from the past, but the topic is highly topical and explosive. "

Web links

Commons : The Forger  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for the counterfeiters . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2006 (PDF; test number: 107 920 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Die Fälscher . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Die Fälscher , annual archive of the Berlinale, accessed on February 26, 2008
  4. ↑ www.diefaelscher.com - Interview with Stefan Ruzowitzky
  5. ↑ www.j-zeit.de ( Memento from March 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) - Interview with Adolf Burger
  6. ↑ Show "Gero von Boehm encounters: August Diehl", broadcast on April 7, 2008, 10:25 pm on 3sat
  7. ↑ Günter Baumann: 'Die Fälscher': Only 40,000 viewers in Austria Austria , around February 2008, after the Oscar ceremony (accessed on December 29, 2008)
  8. ^ Bildungsklick.de - “A compliment for the film state Hessen” , press release of the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art, Wiesbaden, January 24th, 2008
  9. ^ PNN: Gold for the counterfeiters , Potsdamer Latest News, February 26, 2008 (accessed November 6, 2013)
  10. ↑ Information from the Film Institute on the application deadline May 24, 2005 ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Austrian Film Institute , p. 1 (accessed December 29, 2008)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filminstitut.at
  11. ^ Information from the Film Institute on the application deadline May 25, 2004 ( Memento from May 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Österreichisches Filminstitut , p. 2 (accessed on December 29, 2008)
  12. ↑ Karin Zintz / DPA: 'Die Fälscher' and 'Der Mongole' - German-Austrian 'Oscar' dreams. In: Stern, February 24, 2008 (accessed December 29, 2008)
  13. ↑ Film Industry Report 2007, facts + figures 2006, p. 69
  14. ↑ a b c d Film Industry Report 2007, facts + figures 2005, p. 67
  15. ↑ a b c Film Industry Report 2007, facts + figures 2006, p. 80
  16. ^ Province of Upper Austria / Waltraud Eder: From the meeting of the Upper Austria . State government: Over 350,000 euros for film funding. State correspondence No. 158 of July 11, 2006 (accessed December 29, 2008)
  17. ↑ FilmFinanzierungsFonds Hessen-Invest Film II ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , www.hessen-invest-film.de (accessed December 29, 2008) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hessen-invest-film.de
  18. ↑ Funding decisions December 2006 to February 2007.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.medienboard.de   Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (accessed December 29, 2008)
  19. ↑ FFA awards over 2 million euros in distribution funding and media services February 28, 2007 (accessed December 29, 2008)
  20. ↑ Film Industry Report 2008, facts + figures 2007 (PDF) , Österreichisches Filminstitut, p. 77 (page accessed on September 3, 2014)
  21. ↑ www.europa-foerdert-kultur.info  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed December 29, 2008)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.europa-foerdert-kultur.info  
  22. ↑ The Counterfeiters in Hörfilm database of Hörfilm e. V.
  23. ↑ 8th German Audio Film Award 2010
  24. ↑ Number of visitors according to the 2009 Film Industry Report , Facts & Figures 2008 (PDF)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , December 2009, p. 40@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.filminstitut.at  
  25. ↑ Box office results from www.boxofficemojo.com , accessed on September 4, 2008
  26. ↑ Cinema , issue 08/2008, p. 120
  27. ^ Austrian Film Institute : 2008 in the cinema. ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on February 6, 2009)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filminstitut.at
  28. ↑ www.ffa.de - Film hit lists Germany (page accessed on September 4, 2008)
  29. ^ PNN: Gold for the counterfeiters , Potsdamer Latest News, February 26, 2008 (accessed November 6, 2013)
  30. ↑ www.diefaelscher.at
  31. ^ Die Fälscher wins the 34th edition of the Ghent International Film Festival , October 18, 2007
  32. ↑ Middle East International Film Festival - Abu Dhabi: Black Pearl Winners announced ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , October 19, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.meiff.com
  33. ↑ Bert Rebhandl: ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: A moral duel ) , Der Standard , March 23, 2007@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / derstandard.at
  34. ↑ a b www.film-zeit.de ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Press review on Die Fälscher (page accessed on February 28, 2008) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.film-zeit.de
  35. ^ Journal film-dienst and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (eds.), Horst Peter Koll and Hans Messias (ed.): Lexikon des Internationale Films - Filmjahr 2007 . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-89472-624-9
  36. ↑ kino.de: Film review for “Die Fälscher” , kino.de (accessed on November 6, 2013)