The Counterfeiters (2007)

Recommended

Austria/Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: Die Fälscher

Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky

Writers: Stefan Ruzowitzky, Adolf Burger

Cinematographer: Benedict Neuenfels

Composer: Marius Ruhland

Cast: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow, Martin Brambach, August Zirner, Veit Stübner, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Andreas Schmidt, Tilo Prückner

Ruzowitzky’s painfully human adaptation of Adolf Burger’s autobiographical book, featuring an affectingly nuanced central performance, paints a vivid portrait of Salomon Sorowitsch, a Germany-based Russian Jewish counterfeiter, who survives the holocaust by working as part of Operation Bernhard in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which saw a group of Jewish printers and artists working towards producing huge quantities of pounds and dollars, in the hopes of collapsing the British and American economies. Iain.Stott