The Counterfeiters

An Austrian war film. Salomon Sorowitsch is a forger of money. He is caught in Berlin and sent to a concentration camp. In the camp he is made an offer. The Germans are running an operation: they will print British pounds and American dollars in quantities large enough to damage the enemy economy. For that they need printers, engravers, chemists and paper experts. The chosen prisoners are moved to a separate barrack. Clean beds, enough food, even table tennis. On the other side of the wall the camp itself continues, and the sounds carry. From there the film becomes a moral question. One man in the group wants to slow the work down: the money produced will lengthen the war. Sorowitsch puts survival first, and the tension between those two positions is the centre. The problem is that slowing down has a price. If the work is not finished, the whole group will be killed. What the narrative is interested in is not heroism but bargaining: it clears nobody and puts survival itself forward as a choice. The source is real. The operation was run at the Sachsenhausen camp and counts as one of the largest forgeries in history. The screenplay draws on the memoir of a prisoner who worked on it. Karl Markovics plays Sorowitsch and August Diehl the prisoner opposing him. Devid Striesow plays the officer. Stefan Ruzowitzky wrote and directed. The film won the Academy Award for best film in a foreign language. Who it is for: anyone who likes wartime drama and narratives built on moral dilemma. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a clear side; the film neither defends its characters nor accuses them.