The Spoils documents the unravelling of an exhibit of Nazi-stolen art

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In 2014, the German city of Dusseldorf announced that in four years it would open an exhibit dedicated to Max Stern, a local Jewish art dealer who fled the Nazis in 1937, having first been forced to sell off his gallery’s holdings. He settled in Montreal and became a post-war advocate of restitution of art stolen from German Jews.

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Then in 2017, a few weeks before the exhibit was to open, Dusseldorf’s mayor, Thomas Geisel, cancelled the show, claiming (among other reasons) that it was “too Canadian.” A few weeks after that, he reversed his decision and brought in a new team to remount the show.

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It eventually opened in 2021, despite pushback from the city’s Jewish community (who hadn’t been consulted despite their interest) and a virtual boycott by the Canadian heirs to Stern’s legacy. Susanne Anna, the museum director and a staunch proponent of the earlier version, was sidelined by the team and did not give interviews.

The whole mess is now the subject of The Spoils, a new documentary film by Jamie Kastner, a Toronto filmmaker. He’s delved into tricky topics in the past, notably in 2019’s There Are No Fakes, which examines both forgery and cultural appropriation in connection with the works of First Nations artist Norval Morrisseau.

Kastner told the National Post that he first heard of the Dusseldorf imbroglio in 2019 from Sara Angel, a journalist and academic. “She said, ‘If brawls in the art world are your thing, you’ll be interested in this story.’ And indeed I was.”

Kastner went in with an open mind, although he said it was difficult not to eventually side with the angels. Ludwig Von Pufendorf, the lawyer who argues most vociferously against restitution, comes across as an almost stock villain, with his black turtleneck, caramel-coloured jacket and hands-clenched laughter.

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A recent review of the film by Liz Braun lauds Kastner’s “give-’em-enough-rope approach” to filmmaking, but Von Pufendorf barely needs enough to floss one’s teeth.

“He’s a gift to the documentary form,” Kastner admitted. “What can I say, he really is.”

Von Pufendorf is one of a number of voices in the film saying (some more circumspect than others) that the push for reparations and repatriation of Nazi-looted art might be nothing more than a cash grab by “heirs” with dodgy pedigree.

“The working title of the film for a while was drawn from a headline of an op ed in a major German newspaper within the last decade by a Berlin auctioneer, and it was ‘They say Holocaust and mean money.’”

Kastner added that he was two seats down from Von Pufendorf at a recent screening of The Spoils in Berlin. “He got up and proclaimed the film ‘ein machwerk,’ which I gather is an arcane term meaning a shoddy piece of work, and perhaps not as politely as that. I’m tempted to put it on the poster, of course.”

Safe to say not everyone is happy with Kastner’s documentary, but he stands behind the work, which includes a 2014 interview with Susanne Anna (in lieu of something more recent), an awkward meeting with Mayor Geisel, and representatives from the Montreal-based Max Stern Art Restitution Project.

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They include Philip Dombowsky, a National Gallery of Canada archivist, whose reserve is a counterpoint to Von Pufendorf’s bluster.

“Philip Dombowsky is a quieter, more cautious speaker,” said Kastner. “But there is much revealed in both his word choice and his self-editing, in his facial expressions. And in a way it’s even funnier at times or more engaging than if he said what was on his mind.”

He continued: “He’s not someone who actively seeks the limelight. Philip took some convincing to participate in this film altogether. But of course, his story was so important, having really been right in the middle of it at a few chapters, both the cancelation of the old exhibition, but then a witness to, but not part of, the preparations for the second exhibition.”

As part of that exhibition, German organizers visited Ottawa for a few days but did not reach out to Dombowsky. Asked by Kastner: “Were they not interested in talking to the person who had been running the Max Stern archive for 20 years?” Donbowsky says with a telling smirk: “It didn’t appear so.”

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“The devil is in those kind of details,” Kastner told the Post. “So I’m very happy that Philip did agree to participate.”

None of this is to suggest that Kastner is taking any cheap shots. “I have been heartened as the film has rolled out that more than one journalist or audience member has said, you know, we really see both sides. We really see that this is not a cut and dry issue. People have said … Pufendorf seems like a cartoonish villain, but then he makes some very compelling points.”

He added: “It’s important for me that this is journalistically based and that everybody gets a fair say. I think the film is stronger that way.”

A pause, and then: “Of course, I’m a human being. Of course I have my own opinions.” When The Spoils cuts to a musical number from Mel Brooks’ Nazi-themed spoof The Producers, “you can probably guess where my sympathies lie.”

The Spoils also includes scenes from 2014’s The Monuments Men and 2015’s Woman in Gold, both big Hollywood productions on the theme of Nazi-looted art, and proof that the issue continues to draw attention.

Kastner said the original intent was to let the anti-restitution side hold sway for a good portion of the film. “But very quickly … it seemed obvious to us which was the more compelling argument, morally speaking. And so we just thought, ‘well, f— it,’ We’ll make the best film we can.

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“But we’re reacting to the outrageousness of what is being said by one side much more than the other. You know, that’s our personal feelings. Nevertheless, I still would stand behind the fact that the film is balanced. It’s: ‘That’s their argument. If you find it persuasive, OK, there it is.’”

The Spoils opens at Cineplex Empress Walk in Toronto on April 4 for one week, and will also screen at Hot Docs (April 5) and in Montreal (April 6, 8 and 10), Ottawa (April 7), Waterloo (April 23), Hamilton (April 26), Edmonton (April 27) and Vancouver (May 3). More information at cave7productions.com/thespoils/

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