In development.
A coproduction of BSX Schmölzer GmbH and OTTOKAR.
Who knows nothing must believe everything.
How do you cheat a dictator? Quite simply, actually. Because in the end he always becomes a victim of his own delusion. The Spanish dictator Franco already saw himself as the leader of a super power. Thanks to one man: Albert Edler Fülek von Wittinghausen. He promised Franco that he could produce a miracle fuel from water and herbs and thus turn Spain into an energy giant. And Franco believed him.
This satirical filmproject tells the true story of the Austrian swindler Albert Filek, who managed to sell the Spanish dictator Franco the tale that he could make a miracle fuel for him only from water and herbs.
Francisco Franco, this little man with the falsetto voice probably already saw himself rising to become the ruler of a world leading energy superpower, and yet in the end of this story he only stands there naked as a fool.
Who was this swindler who managed to make one of the most ruthless dictators of his time believe such a stupid story? The Spanish Author Ignacio Martínez de Pisón has meticulously researched this man’s story: Albert Filek’s career as a bank robber, marriage swindler and con man reads like a breathless road movie, whom his scams took him from the imperial Vienna of the declining Habsburg Empire to the provinces of Carinthia, Trieste and the chaotic debauchery of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s protofascist operetta state „Free State of Fiume, in the region of present day Rijeka. Until he finally ended up in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
A dazzler like Charles Ponzi or Bernie Madoff. Seductive and brutal at the same time. Like Bonnie & Clyde, constantly on the run. Until he finally thinks he has landed his big coup:
With the simple minded dictator Francisco Franco.
A story that reads like a satiric mockumentary. But with one difference:
It is true.