True story and history movie buffs are in for a treat, coming Aug 10, as RCB film club's top movie for this month is The Counterfeiters (Die Faelscher), an Austrian Oscar winner with English subtitles directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky.
'THE COUNTERFEITERS' ('Die Faelscher'), AUSTRIA photo courtesy of River City Bangkok
The free screening, courtesy of the Embassy of Austria, which celebrates 150 years of friendship between Austria and Thailand, will be at 4pm at the RCB Forum on the 2nd floor of River City Bangkok.
The Counterfeiters is a thought-provoking, dark, riveting film, based on a true story, which captured the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007. The film recounts the story of Operation Bernhard, the Nazi plot to forge British and American currency during World War II. Based on the book The Devil's Workshop by real-life Bernhard-survivor Adolf Burger, the movie highlights the character of Salomon Sorowitsch, played by Austrian actor Karl Markovics.
Sorowitsch, a composite of a number of real-life characters, is an underworld figure in Berlin prior to the Holocaust who is nabbed by Gestapo officer Friedrich Herzog (played by Devid Striesow) trying to forge US currency.
Sorowitsch, labelled both a Jew and habitual criminal figure by the Nazis, eventually finds himself in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp with other prisoners whose pre-war antics ranged from the criminal to art, printing and banking.
These prisoners, housed together in a camp within the camp, are marshaled under Herzog to forge the British pound and then the US dollar. Once these men successfully forged the currency, the Nazis schemed to use it to sabotage the economies of the Allied nations.
It is when the Nazis suddenly decide to shut down the printing machines, that the "counterfeiters" realise that the war is over, and that they are indeed, the survivors.
For reservation send an email to clubmovie2019@gmail.com.
Visit rivercitybangkok.com.
