By Callum McLennan
The Photojournalist Who Fooled the World with Bad CGI
It was a good week for Basque directors Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, who, together with Jose Mari Goenaga, hosted the world premiere of “Marco” in Venice, securing a spot on the shortlist for Spain’s Oscar entry.
Sold by Film Factory Entertainment, with market screenings in Toronto and upcoming stops in San Sebastian, London and Vancouver, “Marco” is generating a lot of buzz. Based on true events, it centers on Enric Marco, a fraud who gains sympathy, fame and respect by falsely claiming to be a concentration camp survivor while serving as president of Spain’s leading association for deportees. His story was a lie.
The filmmakers initially wanted to document Marco’s downfall as a documentary, but as with everything he touched, the truth slipped away. He told them he was going to Germany to get papers from a prison he had been in. The filmmakers wanted to accompany and capture the key footage. “He said no, because it was too personal for him, too intimate,” Jon Garaño recalls. “We understood. But when he came back, it was clear that he had gone with other filmmakers who had made a film. That was a shock to us.” He had dragged them along.
