My Best Enemy

My Best Enemy (original German title Mein bester Feind) is a 2011 Austrian-Luxembourgian co-production directed by Wolfgang Murnberger. The screenplay was written jointly by Murnberger and Paul Hengge, the film was produced by Josef Aichholzer and Jani Thiltges, and the music was composed by Matthias Weber. The original language of the production is German and its story is set in the Vienna of the Second World War years.

The narrative begins shortly after Austria's annexation to the German Reich. The relationship between Victor Kaufmann and Rudi Smekal, friends since childhood, is put to the test under the new political order: Victor, who is Jewish, and his family fail to leave the country in time and are sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, while Rudi joins the NSDAP and the SS in pursuit of advancement. When a Michelangelo drawing from the collection confiscated from the Kaufmann family turns out to be a copy, Victor is pressed to say where the original is hidden. The plane taking him to Berlin is shot down, reversing the fates of the two former friends; Victor pulls Rudi from the wreckage, swaps clothes with him and puts on an SS uniform, and while living in fear of his true identity being exposed he looks for a way to get his mother out to Switzerland.

The leading roles are shared by Moritz Bleibtreu, Marthe Keller and Uwe Bohm.