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.
Maria Altmann
as Self
Michael J. Bazyler
as Self
Hubertus Czernin
as Self
Gerbert Frodl
as Self (archive footage)
Elisabeth Gehrer
as Self (archive footage)
Joseph Goebbels
as Self (archive footage)
Adolf Hitler
as Self (archive footage)
Willi Korte
as Self
Sophie Lillie
as Self
Jonathan Petropoulos
as Self
E. Randol Schoenberg
as Self
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
as Self (archive footage)
