AUCTION

With Alex Lutz, Louise Chevilotte, Léa Drucker

The issue of the return of Nazi-looted art to its rightful heirs makes this high-stakes art world drama as current as international headlines. A wily Paris art auctioneer gets wind of an alleged Egon Schiele painting stolen in 1939 but now come to light in a small working-class suburb. Writer/director Bonitzer creates a web of intrigue in which money over morals threatens to prevail.  Worth millions if authentic, the painting triggers fevered ambition on the part of the auctioneer, his ruthless art appraiser ex-wife, and his emotionally unstable assistant.  Between the auction house and the American heirs of the painting’s original owners stands a naïve and earnest young factory worker, the painting’s current owner.  In French, English and German with English subtitles.