DER ILLUSIONIST

A smart and unsparing documentary portrait of art adviser Helge Achenbach. It starts with him being sentenced to jail for defrauding his clients for tens of millions. The emerging character is fascinatingly complex and controversial, brokering extremely expensive and giant artworks first to banks and corporations, then to celebrity billionaires. It's no wonder his life's story is closely related to the absurd developments of prices for modern art over the last forty years.