As a Community Partner with 2 sponsored films at VIFF, I was very pleased to choose “Marco, The Invented Truth” as one of these screened at VIFF 2024. I had based my choice on directors Aitor Arregi and Jon Garaño’s previous film “The Endless Trench” which played on Netflix during Covid and which I was fortunate see at that time. Not only was I pleased that the film had chosen VIFF for its North American Premiere, but more so when the large number of attendees at International Village 10, gave it a rousing ovation at the end of the film. It had its second screening at Vancity theatre with many of VIFF passholders attending. The film opens with the directors’ clapboard setting the tone that this is fiction. Not a documentary, but an unbelievable drama, even though it is based on a true story. Eduard Fernández (Everybody Knows - 2018) plays Enrico Marco Balle to perfection, according to some of the historians. His lies were exposed by historian Benito Bermejo in 1978, the very day he was re-elected president of the Amical de Mauthausen group, named after the camp in Austria, where the Nazis held most of their Spanish political prisoners. It is never truly understood why he decided to lie about his past as a prisoner in Flossenbürg, a nazi camp in the remote mountain regions of Bavaria, but he perpetuated these lies continuously, writing books and articles of his experiences in the concentration camps, as a Holocaust survivor, and even lecturing in schools, when he was never a survivor. There is a scene in the film where he visits the camp to obtain a certificate of authentication that he was there, but does not obtain proof, but continues trying to obtain certification that he was there. In 1978, at the age of 84 he finally admitted that he lied and this what he said” The lie began in 1978. It seemed I was getting more attention and could better publicize the suffering of many people who passed through the concentration camps” The film masterfully combines fictional scenes with archival footage and reports that blend a reality to his fabricated stories and lies with such belief and insistence, to be inspirational to others, including his family and his fellow members of the committee including, a past holocaust survivor. No-one ever questioned his sincerity and determination until he was exposed. Once exposed he becomes a pitiful human being, despised by those he had fooled, attacked by his daughter and still insisting it was all done in good faith and for the benefit of those who survived. He is never apologetic and still believes he did no harm. He died in 1922 at the age of 101 living alone and yet still trying to have a better version of history written. Full credit to the wonderful script and the superb direction of the film with its twists and turns, as well as an outstanding performance by Eduard Fernández in the lead role. Hopefully we will get a chance to see this film in the theatres in Vancouver.