HAT WOLFF VON AMERONGEN KONKURSDELIKTE BEGANGEN?

How can one make a film about a crime when the evidence for the crimes cannot be shown in neat images and clearly perceived? Through an innovative technique that uses images of ordinary, urbane business such as factories, machines, streets, unidentified squares and finance centres, combined with news-like narration a thoroughly interesting and credible attempt is made to investigate German economic history

Did Wolff von Amerongen Commit Bankruptcy Offences? is a film that looks at the business behaviour of several major corporations and their magnates, detailing their crimes of tax evasion, profiteering and questionable business practices. We come to realise the double-standards of the honorary 'offices' conferred on the leaders of these corporations and the judiciary loopholes that allow them to escape prosecution for economic crime. Major names and major companies are detailed Flick, Strauβ, Krupp and Oetker to name but a few. The combination of mundane image and narrative of bankruptcy, ruin, misfortune, plane crashes and suicide lifts the lid on the sanitised image of the corporate world to reveal a can of worms beneath.

Awards: ARTE Documentary Award for Best German Documentary, Duisburg 2004; Documentary Award of Goethe Institute 2004; Award for Innovative Cinema, Diagonale Graz 2005