A Deal with Adele
Filmfest 2011

A DEAL WITH ADELE is based on a true story. Adele Spitzeder, an unemployed actress who has always moved in the best of circles, arrives in Munich in 1865. She is flat broke and forced to borrow money at a very high interest rate. But she has a brilliant idea: she loans money to the common people - "the most money for your money". The interest payments are covered by the deposits of her new clients - a Ponzi scheme (basically the same system used 150 years later by Bernard Madoff). In the beginning she succeeds. She is the "bank mademoiselle". But as one of the first female bankers, she has to face a lot of envy and opposition. Still, she is a PR and marketing genius. She even buys a newspaper for that purpose. She wants people to consider her a God-fearing, hardworking lady, but even as she champions the cause of the common man, behind closed doors her life is totally different. No matter what the cost, Adele ignores bourgeois etiquette and lives for the moment. Her lifestyle is like a drug and she eventually loses touch with reality...