Synopsis:
He is responsible for the world's largest post-war art forgery scandal: Wolfgang Beltracchi added numerous works to the oeuvre of various artists and, together with his wife Helene, sold them as originals. With talent, art-historical knowledge, and craftsmanship, Beltracchi fooled renowned experts, appraisers, curators, art dealers, gallery owners, and collectors around the world with his forgeries. The film about Wolfgang Beltracchi's life story and the art forgery scandal deals with two major issues of our time: On the one hand, there is the discussion about originals and forgeries, which is highly topical against the backdrop of the digitization of intellectual property. On the other hand, it deals with the highly topical issue of “greed” since the financial crisis. Without the market's greed for fresh originals from past eras, without the insane profit margins in the art trade, a forgery scandal of this magnitude would hardly have been possible. Above all, however, the story of Beltracchi is a crook comedy, a love story, and a film about painting.
Director: Arne Birkenstock
Screenplay: Arne Birkenstock
Camera: Marcus Winterbauer
Protagonists: Wolfgang Beltracchi, Helene Beltracchi, René Allonge, Nicholas Eastaugh, Andreas Dauksch, Henrik Hanstein, Henry Keazor, Sofia Komarowa, Niklas Maak, Micheline Plasman, Bernard Van Ommeslaghe, Manuel Schnee, Franziska Beltracchi
Genre: Documentary
Year: 2014
Awards: Deutscher Filmpreis in Gold (2014) in der Kategorie „Bester Dokumentarfilm“
