Peter Perg’s world has become completely out of line. In 1914, when he left to fight in the First World War, full of optimism, it was for his Emperor… But when he returns from prisoner of war camp several years after the war finishes with a handful of his men, it is to discover that only a fraction of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire now calls itself Austria. Stefan Ruzowitzky filmed his actors for HINTERLAND using blue screen technology. The dark lanes, the façades and structures of desolate Vienna which appears completely out of line were all created on the computer, providing a grim background to the hunt for an obsessed serial killer.

Since his Academy Award for The Counterfeiters in 2008, Stefan Ruzowitzky has directed two action thrillers in the US. He is currently shooting relentless combats on the bridges over the Danube and action-packed car chases along the Vienna Ring Road. His new project DIE HÖLLE involves a young female taxi driver with Turkish roots in a duel with a serial killer and braces the audience for unprecedented tempo in an Austrian action movie.

«Die spezielle Situation in dieser Fälscherwerkstatt ist, dass die Insassen fast wie in einem Ferienlager leben, inmitten eines ganz normalen KZs Privilegien genießen wie und gleichzeitig wissen, dass hinter der Bretterwand ihre Freunde, ihre Familien zu Tode gefoltert werden. Das ist der Hauptkonflikt der Geschichte.» Stefan Ruzowitzky über Die Fälscher, seinen neuen Spielfilm mit Karl Markovics, August Diehl und Devid Striesow.

A crook and an idealist: one of them prints false banknotes and passports, the other leaflets against the regime. The master counterfeiter Sorowitsch and the resistance fighter Burger escape certain death in a concentration camp by producing millions of perfect counterfeit banknotes in the service of the Nazis. Operation Bernhard is the historical background to The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky's new film which portrays a constantly threatened balance of horror between the drive to survive and guilt about survival in the confines of a concentration camp hut.