{"id":548336,"date":"2026-03-20T05:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T05:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/548336\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T05:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T05:21:10","slug":"the-oligarch-and-the-art-dealer-doc-series-interview-at-cphdox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/548336\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Oligarch and the Art Dealer’ Doc Series Interview at CPH:DOX"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMoney, power, art, fraud allegations and a business partnership, maybe even a friendship, gone awry make for an explosive cocktail in The Oligarch and the Art Dealer. The story that has all sorts of Shakespearean flavors is a drama, but not a play. What may sound like a James Bond film isn\u2019t served up shaken or stirred. And yes, it has elements of Succession but isn\u2019t a fictional series. It is a three-episode documentary series. All three hours are screening at the ongoing CPH:DOX<\/a>, the\u00a0Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival<\/a>,\u00a0after the first episode was shown at Sundance. And it makes the series the only one featured at the fest, which has been very selective about the shows it features in its lineup.<\/p>\n

\n\tCreated by producer Christoph J\u00f6rg and director Andreas Dalsgaard<\/a>, who co-wrote the series with Kevin Lincoln and previously collaborated on the feature The Lost Leonardo, the series tells the story of one of the 21st century\u2019s most sensational art scandals that turned into a 10-year war over billions. The CPH:DOX website highlights its \u201ccast of colorful characters that one could hardly invent even in the wildest imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe protagonists move in a secretive world of the super-rich that is typically shielded from the public\u2019s view. The Russian oligarch is Dmitry Rybolovlev. The Swiss art dealer is Yves Bouvier.
\u00a0
Initially a discreet adviser, Bouvier becomes \u201ca global power broker and manager of Rybolovlev\u2019s investments in one of the world\u2019s most closed and enigmatic markets,\u201d highlights a synopsis. Said market is \u201cthe part of the art world where the sums are staggering and the value of artworks is something agreed upon by a narrow elite of connoisseurs and ultra-rich tycoons.\u201d
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But eventually, the gloves come off. \u201cWhen the friendship between Bouvier and Rybolovlev suddenly explodes, a web of lies is revealed,\u201d reads the synopsis. \u201cThe question is: who is really in the right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMiriam Norgaard is also a producer on The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, with co-producers Ines Bensalem, Philippe Coeytaux, Lea Fels, Lucy Sexton and Isidoor Roebers. The series is produced by Dalsgaard\u2019s Elk\u00a0Film\u00a0and\u00a0J\u00f6rg\u2019s Vestigo Films\u00a0in co-production with Scenery, Akka\u00a0Films\u00a0and Words + Pictures.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the sidelines of the 23rd edition<\/a> of CPH:DOX, which runs through Sunday, the two creators tell THR that they are happy to leave it to viewers to make up their minds, but wanted to invite them to take a peek behind the curtains of a world that most of us will never experience.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe wanted to understand how this secretive world that these two people live in works,\u201d J\u00f6rg tells THR. \u201dThey had the same goal. But then what always happens in this kind of relationship is that greed shows up, ego shows up, human behavior shows up, and then things go wrong and explode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018The Oligarch and the Art Dealer\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Elk Film<\/p>\n

\n\tDalsgaard highlights the Hollywood feel of the whole affair. \u201cWhat partly drew me to this is that we are in a universe that resembles what we see in series like Succession or Billions,\u201d he tells THR. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like a James Bond universe, or Tenet. We see that stuff in fiction, but we never see it in a documentary. That\u2019s because it\u2019s so secretive and it\u2019s so hard to get access. No one in this world wants to talk, because that makes you vulnerable, and only because these two guys went to war and fought it out in courts all over the world, we as a public can access what actually went on inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, the team behind The Oligarch and the Art Dealer had thousands of documents to explore, including emails.<\/p>\n

\n\tDalsgaard compares the impact of the materials to \u201cthe shock that\u2019s happening right now around the world with the release of the Epstein files,\u201d explaining: \u201cSuddenly we get an insight into all these networks and all the ways that these people are dealing with each other and using each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the many insights of the series is on private auctions, \u201cwhere an auction house puts these billionaires together, and then they are sitting there and fighting over a Klimt or whatever,\u201d explains J\u00f6rg.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe series also shows a freeport in Geneva that has been called the largest art museum that you will never get into. \u201cIf you remember the end shot in Indiana Jones, where The Ark of the Covenant is put in a box and moved into this endless storage space, that\u2019s pretty much what a freeport is,\u201d explains Dalsgaard.<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven all the intrigue and power players involved, the duo behind the series emphasizes how much careful work, fact-checking and legal reviews the work on the project involved.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018The Oligarch and the Art Dealer\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Elk Film<\/p>\n

\n\tWith all the makings of a Hollywood drama, who will show The Oligarch and the Art Dealer in the U.S.? The creators tell THR that no deal is in place \u2013 yet.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about the series\u2019 clear global appeal, J\u00f6rg offers: \u201cIt has some of those [ingredients] that also make Shakespeare universal. He wrote stories about kings and dukes and princes, and oftentimes they end up getting in trouble due to the faults that they have as human beings \u2013 their greed, their ego, their jealousy. And that ends up eating them from the inside. I think we see something very similar in this story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConcludes Dalsgaard: \u201cThis story is, of course, about art. But it\u2019s really a story about how money and power wield their influence in the world, which is a timely [theme]. And art plays a big role in that. What I\u2019m personally really fascinated by here is what makes this unique: There\u2019s almost no other situation where we\u2019ve ever had this kind of insight into the circles of money and power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Money, power, art, fraud allegations and a business partnership, maybe even a friendship, gone awry make for an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,200933,75,77,337],"class_list":["post-548336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cphdox","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}