Ambitious André Masson (Alex Lutz) is passionate about many things: beautiful cars, luxury watches, money, and his work as auctioneer at the famous Scottie’s in Paris. One day, he receives a letter telling him that a working-class family in the suburb of Mulhouse owns a long-lost painting said to be by Egon Schiele, a work judged by the Nazis as ‘degenerate art’. In this light-hearted morality tale writer-director Pascal Bonitzer depicts the world of high art, where the artistic, the political, and the personal are intertwined in a game of appearances and seduction, where people hide behind masks, and where gambling, lies, betrayals and bluffs all play their part.

Notes by Marie-Pierre Richard.

Screening as part of IFI French Film Festival 2024.