In "Woman in Gold", being shown at the Berlin International
Film Festival, Mirren plays the late Maria Altmann, who battled
all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in her ultimately
successful battle to get the Austrian government to turn over
extremely valuable paintings by Gustav Klimt.
Among them was the Klimt 1907 portrait from his "gold period" of
Altmann’s aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer that gives the film its title.
It 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.
She was joined by co-stars including Daniel Bruhl, Max Irons and
Ryan Reynolds, who plays Randol Schoenberg, the young lawyer who
helped her win her near decade-long case.
Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in
Europe, said there were as many as 100,000 looted art works
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 Berlin Special forum at the
festival and will open in the United States and Britain in
April.
(Editing by Dominic Evans)
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