Stealing Klimt

Die heute 90-jährige Maria Altmann schafft es mit Durchhaltevermögen und Hartnäckigkeit, vor einem amerikanischen Gericht die Rückgabe von fünf Klimt-Gemälden zu erwirken, die ihrer jüdischen Familie 1938 von den Nazis gestohlen wurden. Seitdem hingen die Bilder in der Österreichischen Nationalgalerie. Die Nichte des Zuckerrohrfabrikanten Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, dessen Besitz mit der Annexion Österreichs enteignet wurde, kämpfte nach ihrer Flucht aus dem Dritten Reich unermüdlich um die Herausgabe des Kunsterbes. Doku über den Kampf von Gustav Klimts Nichte, von den Nazis gestohlene Gemälde zurück zu erhalten.

Stealing Klimt recounts the struggle by 90-year-old Maria Altmann to recover five Gustav Klimt paintings stolen from her family by the Nazis in Vienna. From the end of the War up until last year, these paintings hung in the Austrian National Gallery. The film covers Maria's early life in glittering fin-de-siècle Vienna, her dramatic escape from Nazi terror and her courageous fight to recover the five Klimt's against all the odds. Maria's fight to reclaim the paintings eventually took her to the United States Supreme Court and pitted her not just against Austria but also against the US Government which asked the Supreme Court to reject her case. After Maria finally emerged victorious in 2006, one of the paintings - the "Golden Portrait" of Maria's aunt, Adele Bloch Bauer - was sold to cosmetics tycoon Ronald Lauder for $135m, becoming the world's most expensive painting ever sold. The other four paintings were recently auctioned at Christie's for record prices.