A film by Martin Smith and Jane Chablani
Produced by Films of Record
England | 2006 | 89' | 52'
This is the story of the struggle by Maria Altmann, a beautiful and elegant 90-year-old, to recover five Klimt paintings stolen from her family by the Nazis in 1938. The paintings have been hanging in the Austrian National Gallery ever since. This David and Goliath story chronicles Maria's early life in glittering fin-de-siecle Vienna, her dramatic escape from Nazi terror, and her courageous fight to recover the five Klimts against all the odds. Maria's fight eventually takes her to the US Supreme Court and pits her not just against Austria, but also against the Bush Administration. After she finally won, one of the paintings, "the Golden Portrait" of Maria's aunt, was sold to Ronald Lauder for $135 million in 2006, becoming one of the world's most expensive painting ever sold.
