The Photographer of Mauthausen

"Based on an incredible real story"

2018 1h 51m ES

👍

6.9

SOLID

★6.9TMDB · 766

DramaHistoryThriller

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Spanish photographer Francesc Boix, imprisoned in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, works in the SS Photographic Service. Between 1943 and 1945, he hides, with the help of other prisoners, thousands of negatives, with the purpose of showing the freed world the atrocities committed by the Nazis, exhaustively documented. He will be a key witness during the Nuremberg Trials.

“Based on an incredible real story”

WhatsApp X Facebook Telegram

Where to watch · US

NetflixSubscription

Netflix Standard with AdsSubscription

Cast

Mario Casas
Francesc Boix
Richard van Weyden
Ricken
Alain Hernández
Valbuena
Adrià Salazar
Anselmo
Eduard Buch
Fonseca
Stefan Weinert
Ziereis
Rubén Yuste
Rosales
Nikola Stojanovic
Bonarewitz

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Mar Targarona
Writers: Alfred Pérez-Fargas, Roger Danès
Languages: French, German, Spanish
Countries: Hungary, Spain

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 8 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: French, German, Spanish.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: Hungary, Spain.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Mar Targarona, shot by Aitor Mantxola. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Diego Navarro. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor José Luis Romeu shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Mario Casas and Richard van Weyden and Alain Hernández carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Based on an incredible real story".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Mar Targarona directs. Aitor Mantxola behind the camera. Diego Navarro scores. José Luis Romeu cuts. Produced in Hungary, Spain. Dialogue in French, German, Spanish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 8 years ago.
2Dialogue crosses 3 languages: French, German, Spanish.
3International production across 2 countries: Hungary, Spain.
4Directed by Mar Targarona, shot by Aitor Mantxola. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Diego Navarro. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor José Luis Romeu shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Mario Casas and Richard van Weyden and Alain Hernández carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Based on an incredible real story".
9IMDB entry: tt6704776 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 17 themes, including "photographer", "holocaust (shoah)", "world war ii", "spanish civil war (1936-39)".

The technical file

Cinematography: Aitor Mantxola
Original score: Diego Navarro
Editing: José Luis Romeu
Costume design: Mercè Paloma
Makeup / hair: Kornél Hidas
Sound: Edgar Vidal
Stunt coordinator: Domonkos Párdányi
Runtime: 111 min · 1h 51m
Status: Released
Box office: $2,701,645
Original language: ES
Certification (US): R
IMDB: The Photographer of Mauthausen (2018)

Also by

Mar Targarona

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2026-08-30
★ 7/10
With Franco perfectly happy for the Nazis to do his dirty work for him, many of those communists fleeing the new Fascist regime in Spain found themselves imprisoned in labour camps. One such prisoner is Francesc Boix (Mario Casas) who cottons on fairly quickly that the survival rate in this place isn't high. Luckily for him though, they are sticklers for red tape and that means photographs - and he knows how to take and develop them. He manages to ingraties himself with "Ricken" (Richard van Weyden) and is soon a sort of trusty, safe(r) from the atrocities being carried out by both the camp guards and by their empowered "Kapo" - a few crooks, murderers and rapists given the job of policing any resistance from amongst their own numbers. The more work he does, the more abhorred Boix becomes and he hits on the idea of preserving some of the evidence he has procured for posterity. What better way to prove for certain what was going on than to keep the negatives of the gruesome images he was routinely required to capture? As the tide of the war begins to change, the captives start to think there might be grounds for optimism but as the allies get closer might the brutish commandant Ziereis (Stefan Weinert) tame his excesses or will he become even worse, and can Boix manage to keep his negatives safe as the ovens start to be used for altogether different, evidence burning, purposes? I thought that Casas really owned his part here and coupled with some detailed production design; a really quite powerful ensemble cast and some convincing imagery of the daily barbarity makes this an uncomfortably authentic film to watch. That any people could inflict torture on such a large scale and on such an indiscriminate fashion on just about everyone else - and that some of their own nationals were prepared to enthusiastically participate - makes the hairs on your neck stand up and Mar Targarona's often intimate direction allows sense of fear and tension to accumulate without us terribly certain as to what's going to happen until the very end. It's all based on true events and is a tough film to watch.

Production companies