Keswick Film Club - The Counterfeiters

Synopsis

The moral quandary of collaboration - fight for what you believe in and face certain death, or co-operate with the enemy to save your own skin - is the crux of this taut drama which tells the true story of a group of imprisoned artists, financiers and swindlers secretly assembled in a concentration camp to forge millions of pound and dollar notes to support the German war effort.

Ruzowitzky's film is gripping, in the manner of a tense thriller, yet the director highlights the horrors of war with remarkable subtlety, and he digs deeply into questions related to choice, survival and martyrdom with great clarity.