Czesław Bojarski, born in the southeastern Polish town of Łańcut, was dubbed the “Cézanne of counterfeiters” for the near-perfect banknotes he produced in France in the 1960s.
Decades later, his forged notes remain highly sought after by collectors.
The film, The Money Maker (L’Affaire Bojarski), directed by Jean-Paul Salomé, follows Bojarski’s path from a gifted post-war arrival in France, struggling to find his place in society, to a lone operator behind one of the most sophisticated counterfeiting operations of the era.
Over the course of 12 years, he single-handedly forged an estimated 300 million old French francs, producing bills that were almost impossible to detect.
Salomé is keen to move beyond the cliché of the criminal mastermind. “Bojarski was not a gangster,” the director told Polish Radio.
“He was a graduate of a prestigious engineering school in Poland whose talent went unrecognised after the war. In France, he never truly found his footing.”
Press materials
Among Bojarski’s most famous creations was a 100-franc note featuring Napoleon, now regarded as his masterpiece and valued at several thousand euros.
According to Salomé, Bojarski was driven as much by artistic ambition as by deception.
If he felt that a banknote issued by the Banque de France had been produced too hastily or lacked aesthetic balance, he would painstakingly refine it himself.
The film will be released in Poland under the title The Forger of the Century and is scheduled to appear on Polish streaming platforms in mid-May.
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Source: IAR