Watching an absolutely insane documentary rn
It's about these 2 students from Berlin who made an animated short film. They put it on yt, the reception is very positive, but then want to go submit it to festivals and take it offline.
However. They are rejected because the film already exists. Confused they look into it and discover that some random guy in Virginia has straight up stolen their film. He's been to over a dozen film festivals with it. He won prizes for it. He has given interviews about it, he's becoming a rising star in the animation scene.
So, what to do? Sue him? That's too expensive and too complicated, it would take years to reach a verdict and they don't really want to ruin this guy's life. Instead, they decide to travel to the US to confront him. It's quite the undercover operation, they work with an American journalist to make the thief think they're doing a documentary about up-and-coming filmmakers, all very exciting.
Then the interview happens. They try to broach the subject as carefully as possible, but before they can make an accusation the thief is like
"So, you're the ones who made *original film*? Yeah, makes sense."
Like what he did was completely normal. No shame, nothing.
And it's so interesting to see how jarring this behaviour is. Really makes you understand how assholes get away with their bullshit. Born scammer and conman.
