It’s a truly important documentary that asks: Why do we believe everything we see?
All of us lie from time to time. But it’s rare that someone succeeds in making it as lucrative as Michael Born did. Between 1990 and 1996, this self-made journalist sold more than twenty fake news segments to commercial television networks in Germany.
This film looks beyond the story of an extraordinary media scandal in order to analyze the media itself.
Erec Brehmer works between classical narrative cinema and open, associative forms—across both fiction and documentary. His films revolve around loneliness, fragile relationships, and the fault lines of our society’s promises of happiness. More than external goals, he is drawn to the inner contradictions of his characters—those moments where motive, desire, and action no longer align.
Born in 1987. Living in Munich, Germany. He completed vocational training as an editor at the Second German Television (ZDF). Studied directing at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF) afterwards. Graduated with a diploma in 2018.
Erecs films have been screened and awarded nationally and internationally at renowned festivals such as Filmfest Munich, Max Ophüls Film Festival, HotDocs, DOK.fest Munich and CamerImage.
Das Leichte und das Schwere (2026), Born to Fake (2025), Wer wir gewesen sein werden (2021), La Palma (2020)
Benjamin Rost studied film directing at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg after previously studying philosophy and TV journalism. His films have been shown and awarded at international festivals such as DOK Leipzig, DOK.fest Munich, Filmfest Munich and Camerimage. He is a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation and the state scholarship Young Art and New Paths.
Between 2017 and 2019, he lived in Rwanda and South Africa, where he supported the youth TV channel ‘Iwacu’ of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) and at the same time shot his graduation film A Portrait on the Search for Happiness, which was funded by ARD / MfG and is available on Amazon Prime. His debut film Harraga – Those Who Burn Their Lives was released nationwide in cinemas and was nominated for the German Documentary Film Award. In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, he founded the Pitch_It-programme and the FILM IT animation workshop for refugee children from Ukraine. His latest film, Born to Fake, received numerous positive reviews (including in Tagesthemen, Capriccio and TTT - Titel Thesen Tempramente) and won the One Future Award at the Munich Film Festival.
Born to Fake (2025), Harraga - those who burn their lives (2023), A Portrait on the Search for Happiness (2020), Nachtwanderer (2018)
