Saturday May 31 | 5:00 pm | Pacific Cinémathèque

Directors: Aitor Arregi & Jose Maria Goenaga, Spain, 2007, 93 minutes

Lucio Urtubia is a retired bricklayer who lives quietly in suburban Paris. He is also one of the greatest counterfeiters that ever lived. But how did a Spanish labourer from the tiny village of Navarra bring one of the world’s biggest banks to its knees?

Dubbed “the good bandit” by the French press, Lucio’s startling David and Goliath story began in Franco’s Spain smuggling contraband, but it was in Paris where he found his political calling as an anarchist. It was a philosophy that deeply appealed to Lucio’s distrust of money and power. After sheltering the legendary dissident Quico Sabaté from the French and Spanish authorities, Lucio determined that it was much easier to make money than to steal it. With that a master forger was born. Lucio set out to rob banks of their power and privilege, funding causes around the world—everyone from Che Guevara to The Black Panthers—without missing a single day of work.

Interviews with his family, friends and others far less charmed by Lucio’s activities create a vivid and engaging portrait of an extraordinary man. With little more than native skill, Lucio was able to create some of the most perfect forgeries ever made. Nothing proved to be beyond his ability including forging identity cards, passports and bank notes. But his masterpiece was an epic scheme in which counterfeit Citibank travellers’ cheques were exchanged for real money. The largest bank in the world was soon drowning in a sea of false paper and forced to negotiate on Lucio’s terms.

Directors Aitor Arregi and Jose Maria Goenaga have fashioned an exquisitely constructed, razor-sharp look at Lucio’s life and crimes, which plays like a Hollywood suspense caper. False identities, police stings and seemingly impossible escapes are recreated through dazzling graphics, archival footage and dramatic reenactments. But it is Lucio himself who is most engaging in this tale of larceny and politics. His sanguine pronouncements that banks are basically the biggest crooks around—“They exploit you, take your money and cause all the wars”—has an acid relevancy in these days of corporate scandal and economic meltdown.

Directors’ Biographies

Aitor Arregi was co-director of the animated features Glup and Cristóbal Molón.

Jose Mari Goenaga is director of prize-winning shorts like Tercero B and Sintonía.

Screening Partner	Community Partner

Spartacus Books is Vancouver's non-profit bookstore and resource centre. Run by a collective of volunteers, the store has been a hub for radical education and action in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland since 1973.

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