Master Game

  • 10 10
  • 1998
  • 105min
Master Game
  • Original Title: Das Meisterspiel

Filmmaker Lutz Dammbeck undertakes an investigation that begins in the realm of art and becomes political when a series of "art attacks" and mail bombings occur in Austria in 1994.

Master Game
Awards

AWARDS: Silver Dove. Dok Leipzig

OFFICIAL SELECTIONS: DOk Leipzig/ DEFA

Master Game. The mystery of the over-painter

At the Vienna Art Academy in 1994, anonymous perpetrators spread black paint over 27 works by Austrian painter Arnulf Rainer. Rainer had become world-famous for his abstract art and, in particular, for his over-painting of photographs and his own and other artists’ paintings. 

Now, who has painted over the over-painter? Speculation rages: Did he deface his works himself? A year later, an unsigned letter surfaces that claims responsibility for the act and accuses Rainer—and modern art in general—of being complicit in “destructive modernism.” At the same time, Austria is shaken by a series of mail bombings by the Bavarian Liberation Army, which sees the country’s “German identity” threatened. 

Are these two actions part of a campaign against modernism?.

Lutz Dammbeck
Lutz Dammbeck Director

Production Companies

Lutz Dammbeck Filmproduktion


Curated Award-Winning Docs From Around The Globe

Best Documentary Films

WATCH NOW