Mack the Knife - Brecht's Threepenny Film

Following the phenomenal success of The Threepenny Opera, the film industry wants to win over the celebrated author. But Bertolt Brecht is not prepared to play by their rules. His concept of the Threepenny Film is radical, uncompromising, political, and incisive. He wants to make a completely new kind of film, and he knows that the production company, concerned only with success at the box office, will never agree to it. While the film version of The Threepenny Opera takes shape before the author's eyes as a conflict between Macheath, a London gangster, and Peachum, the head of the beggars' mafia, Brecht seeks to make the dispute public. He takes the production company to court in order to prove that the moneyed interests are prevailing over his right as an author. A poet directs reality: that's never happened before! (Filmfest München)