Synopsis

During World War II, Jewish counterfeiter Salomon Sorowitsch is imprisoned by the Nazis and eventually transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There, he is recruited for Operation Bernhard, a secret effort to produce counterfeit British and American currency. The privileged working conditions offer a chance of survival, but Sorowitsch and his fellow prisoners face an agonizing moral choice between cooperation and resistance.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is based on Adolf Burger's memoir The Devil's Workshop. Burger was a Slovak Jewish printer who was imprisoned after forging documents intended to help Jews escape deportation.

• Its historical background is Operation Bernhard, a Nazi plan to destabilize the British economy by flooding the market with forged pound notes.

• The screenplay was developed with Burger's memories as a major reference point, giving the production a direct connection to one of the operation's survivors.

• Filming took place in Vienna, Monte Carlo, and Germany from March to May 2006. Studio Babelsberg was among the production partners.

• The film premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2007.

• Die Faelscher became the first Austrian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, receiving the honor at the 80th Academy Awards in 2008.

• Apart from Marius Ruhland's score, the soundtrack uses older tango recordings by Argentine harmonica player Hugo Diaz and opera recordings from the 1930s and 1940s.