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Actress Helen Mirren spotlights Nazi-looted art in new film

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Israel Hayom 10 February 2015

The Academy Award winner stars in "Woman in Gold," the true story of a Jewish woman's struggle to get back art confiscated from her family by the Nazis • Commission for Looted Art in Europe: Some 100,000 art works still unaccounted for.


Actress Helen Mirren at the news conference to promote the movie "Woman in Gold" at the 65th International Film Festival in Berlin

Actress Helen Mirren said on Monday that her portrayal of a Jewish woman's struggle to get back paintings confiscated when her ancestors fled Austria to escape Nazi rule throws a spotlight on the slow pace of restitution of looted Jewish property.

In "Woman in Gold," being shown at the Berlin International Film Festival, Mirren plays the late Maria Altmann, who went to the U.S. Supreme Court in her ultimately successful battle to get the Austrian government to turn over valuable paintings by Gustav Klimt.

Among them was Klimt's 1907 portrait of Altmann's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, from his "golden phase," which gives the film its title. The painting was reportedly sold in 2006 to cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, at the time the highest price ever paid for a painting.

"So many people from that particular conflict did not receive any justice whatsoever ... and so to have one little tiny moment of justice, it is a great thing," Mirren said at a news conference to promote the movie at the 65th International Film Festival in Berlin.

She was joined by co-stars including Daniel Bruhl, Max Irons and Ryan Reynolds, who plays Randol Schoenberg, the young lawyer who helped Altmann win her near decade-long case.

Anne Webber, co-chairwoman of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, said as many as 100,000 looted art works were still unaccounted for, and qualified that as a "vague estimate."

"I can tell you that 90 percent of the thousands and thousands of works of art people are searching for still can't be found today. So that gives you an indication of how hard it is to obtain restitution," she said.

The film is being shown in the Berlinale Special Galas section at the festival and will open in the United States and Britain in April.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=23433
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