Overview
- Pascal Bonitzer’s Auction (Le tableau volé) begins U.S. theatrical play on October 29, with New York’s Film Forum among the openings.
- The movie is inspired by the 2005 rediscovery near Mulhouse of Egon Schiele’s 1914 Wilted Sunflowers, a Nazi-confiscated work traced to collector Karl Grünwald.
- Coverage reiterates that the painting was returned to Grünwald’s heirs and sold at Christie’s London in 2006 for roughly £11.7–£11.8 million, purchased by Eykyn Maclean.
- Bonitzer fictionalizes owners and institutions while anchoring to the case’s facts, with composite characters modeled on real figures such as Thomas Seydoux and Rudolf Leopold.
- Critics describe a researched, sardonic dramedy that contrasts a working-class finder’s limited gains with the ambitions of auction houses, lawyers, and experts.