Program

Born to Fake

supporting film "Paul Jannowski"

Storyline

Born to Fake is a gripping documentary charting the outrageous rise and dramatic fall of Michael Born – a self-made journalist and self-styled inventor of fake news, who shook 1990s Germany with his sensational fabricated TV reports.

About the film/director

Erec Brehmer trained as a media designer at ZDF and studied directing at the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF). He works in both fiction (LA PALMA, 2019) and documentaries (WER WIR GEWESEN SEIN WERDEN, 2022).

Benjamin Rost studied philosophy, TV journalism, and later directing at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg. His debut film HARRAGA was nominated for the 2024 German Documentary Film Award.

Director’s statement

Erec Brehmer
Absurd fakes, the biggest media scandal of the 1990s, and a landmark court ruling that declared deceiving viewers wasn’t even a crime! When I first heard about Michael Born in 2018, I couldn’t believe I didn’t already know his story. Despite training at ZDF and years of working in the media industry, this scandal had somehow passed me by.

Having long been concerned with the social responsibility of journalism, I began to dig deeper. Eventually, Born’s former friend Roland Berger handed me boxes of raw footage. Together with my long-time collaborator Benjamin Rost, I started to go through the material. Could you tell these reports were fake? How did they change once you knew they were? And could these kinds of fakes still happen today?

Over the five years we spent working on this film, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence brought a whole new dimension to our investigation – raising urgent questions about the future power and credibility of images. Are we, as viewers and as a media system, ready for this next chapter?

In the end, **BORN TO FAKE** became more than just a portrait of 1990s media culture. More than an attempt to question our concept of truth. More than the story of a failed man who never found his place in society. It became a film that re-examines the media’s responsibility – and asks audiences to take some of that responsibility on themselves.

Benjamin Rost
What fascinated me about Born from the beginning was his role as a tragic hero. Who is this man who calls himself an anarchist, a sailor, a globetrotter – and who escapes every tight spot with yet another lie? Who sews KKK robes with his mother to fool one of Germany’s most-watched TV shows? Who casts himself first as a world-changer, then as the Santa Claus of tabloid television – and finally dies, consumed by alcohol and delusion, in the house of his best friend?

What remains of such a person? And how can we get close to him?

Throughout the process, we loved Born and hated him – sometimes in the same breath. There was never a clear-cut answer.

Over the years of intense collaboration on **BORN TO FAKE**, Erec Brehmer and I found a path forward. Not one that condemns or defends, and not simply a portrait of a tragic antihero. Our film became a playful exploration of truth – and of what we are willing to believe.

Around Born and his life story, a vast web of themes emerges, through which audiences are invited to drift. It’s a reflection on truth – and on what it’s still worth in a time when fake news is routine and AI is no longer some distant technology, but part of our daily reality.