The Schmooze

Helen Mirren To Be Honored By World Jewish Congress

Fighting For ‘Austria’s Mona Lisa’: Lawyer Randol Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) with Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and journalist Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Bruhl) during a hearing in Vienna. Image by origin pictures

By Anne Cohen May 12, 2015

All hail the Queen! The Weinstein Company has announced that will be honored by the World Jewish Congress for her role in “Woman in Gold.”

In the film, Mirren plays Maria Altmann, an Austrian-American fighting to reclaim her family’s Gustav Klimt paintings – including the famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I – stolen by the Nazis during World War Two. Altmann’s lawyer, E. Randol (Randy) Schoenberg, is portrayed by Ryan Reynolds.

“Being a part of this film and preserving Maria Altmann’s legacy has been a truly exceptional experience from the start,” Mirren said in a statement. “I am utterly moved to be receiving an award from the World Jewish Congress, an organization that does such important work all over the globe in advocating for Jewish rights.”

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder purchased the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I after its restitution to Altmann by the Austrian government in 2006. It is now on display at the Neue Gallery in New York City.

“The history of the ‘Woman in Gold’ painting exemplifies the immense suffering, painful loss and, for a prolonged period, the injustice that many Jews were subjected to during the 20th century,” added in a statement released by the Weinstein Company. “With the opening of this new movie, audiences can learn about the second half of the Nazi-looted art story: the postwar art grab by governments and museums that willfully continued the Nazi theft, both by hiding the art from the rightful owners or their heirs and by fighting the victims in court to keep the artworks.”

“Thanks to Helen Mirren’s stunning performance, the international public will learn about this legacy of World War II which still hasn’t been addressed properly by many governments and museums.”

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

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