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The original was posted on /r/youtubedrama by /u/dr_marx2 on 2025-10-01 09:37:29+00:00.

A few days ago German public television released a 76 minute documentary regarding an animated short film by Berlin based film students Moritz Henneberg and Julius Drost, being stolen by American “entrepreneur” Samuel Felinton.

Samuel Felinton then submitted their animated movie to hundreds of film festivals, was selected for over 20 world wide to attend to, and won many awards. He went on TV in dozens of interviews talking about the creative process of making this movie and what he thought of certain scenes, etc. despite it never being him making the movie. It was made over the process of three years?!

All German news is over this at the moment, and I just finished watching the whole documentary, however, although the story starts and continues the exact same way, as Harry Brewis’ exposure of James Somerton, it ends very differently:

Samuel Felinton, once confronted, reacts somewhat apologetic, but before apologizing or anything just bluntly offers to send the German film students the money he made off of this, and is later given the platform to tell his sad story. In his story he shows how he was bullied in middle school and always had doubts about his public image and own competence, and it ended by him saying he just didn’t want to disappoint the people who believed in him. He also said that the only thing he cared about was his company, and he simply was so scared about losing all of that, which is why he never stopped or told these German film students what he did. He specifically said that all of the things he built was his hard work, which is why he was so scared of losing it all. Before being confronted they also interviewed him, where he stated that his main goal was to own the largest building in the city and make a ton of money. He never spoke about making a good film or moving people. He said that in some interviews when asked about “his” vision for “his” movie and what he meant by certain scenes, yet when just asked about his goals, art or making things for the sake of it, was never one of them. He had power fantasies, but no artistic goals. The documentary went out of its way to show how obsessed he was with having a good public image of an entrepreneur, how he likes the setup or marketing things and making profiles for projects and making that look good, but not actually making something.

I thought they’d play this to explain what nonsense his arguments were, yet they truly made him a sympathetic figure that simply made a one-off mistake (over the course of years, collecting many awards, probably not just for their short animated film…). In the end, the documentary shows them now possibly working together and portrays this to be some new and bold approach to dealing with such a “conflict”, while to me it seems a lot like letting someone get away with doing something terrible and both-siding an issue with an obvious perpetrator and obvious victims.

The short film was originally called “Butty”, the person who ripped it off renamed it to “T-130”, cut out one scene that was poorly animated, changed the end credits to name him instead of these two film students, and may have added one song as background noise. The name change is also never shown as an attempt to hide his plagiarism, but rather they let him explain that he thought it was a smarter vision because the name wouldn’t be accepted by English speaking audiences. To be fair, it does sound silly, but he obviously changed the name to not be called out for plagiarism that could be exposed through a Google search, the documentary doesn’t mention this fact or perspective once.

When confronted, he didn’t act surprised or shocked or at a loss of words, he simply said that they both had different visions for the movie and he published his vision, they published theirs. The documentary made zero effort at exposing this narrative as something slimy. The ripped off film students even compliment him for his confidence. The word “plagiarism” is (I believe) not used once in this documentary. The doing of plagiarism is, after an initial confrontation, played off passively as some act that happened, not something that this guy actively did. I think I’m going insane??!!

During the documentary, during the part where I believed they’d build up to show what a fraud this guy is, they showed how he’s running 6 companies, some of them fashion brands, and also has “made” other short films. The documentary never discusses this any further nor specifies that those are definitely his own. Why would they not mention the other short films he’s made, especially if it could be used to argue that this was the first time he ripped someone off? Why can’t I find anything about those other short films online anymore??

They once even talk about this guy’s age and how unfair it’d be to have him exposed or ruin his life. That part I agree with, but then don’t do the documentary? If I was a plagiarist and I saw this, I’d know that I can do whatever the hell and by the time I’m exposed for one singular thing of possibly many, I just give back that money, tell my story of how I felt like a fraud the whole time and am also a victim, and then just continue being a public figure, I guess? The documentary even shows how weird it was that he didn’t show any emotion initially and just brushed this confrontation off like nothing happened.

I mean, I’m not the film students being ripped off, they seem to be fine with this situation, so who am I to say that this is wrong if everyone’s happy? Additionally, I believe that Harry Brewis would probably have done or said things differently if he’d know the fallout and reaction of his video to James Somerton personally, but is that a reason to give someone a nice way out and allow them to explain their narrative and it not being plagiarism?

I urge you to view the documentary (which may have English subtitles and is majorly in English) and or read articles about it online, I’ve collected some here:

“The talented Mr. F” German public television (ARD) Der talentierte Mr. F.: Der talentierte Mr. F. - Der talentierte Mr. F.: Der talentierte Mr. F. - https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/Y3JpZDovL21kci5kZS9zZW5kdW5nLzI4MjA0MC81MzMxMzYtNTA3ODU5

A trailer on Instagram for this documentary, in case it’s region locked for you (also in English) https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPGwqGwE9Ng/

“Content theft happens - and there are creative ways to deal with it” by German public news (RBB24) https://www.rbb24.de/kultur/beitrag/2025/09/berlin-doku-der-talentierte-mr-f-film-klau-filmstudenten.html

As a transcript, in case you don’t know German (you can translate this): https://www.rbb-online.de/rbbkultur-magazin/archiv/20250927_1830/kunstklau-dokumentarfilm-der-talentierte-mister-felinton-filmdieb-filmemacher-berlin.html

“The Talented Mr. F.: New Documentary with True Crime Character” by German public news (MDR) https://www.mdr.de/presse/der-talentierte-mr-f-114.html

“Imagine, someone steals your movie” by FAZ https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien-und-film/fernsehfilm/der-film-der-talentierte-mr-f-in-der-ard-accg-110707290.html

“Two Berlin animation artists have their film stolen – in the USA they confront the perpetrator!” by Filmstarts.de https://www.filmstarts.de/nachrichten/1000166339.html

Christopher Zwickler on the launch of “The Talented Mr. F”: “Perfect for our production company” https://the-spot-mediafilm.com/news/interviews/christopher-zwickler-zum-start-von-der-talentierte-mr-f-perfekt-fuer-unsere-produktionsfirma/

“Too absurd for the screen? – Igor Plischke on the real film thief” https://m.quotenmeter.de/?p1=n&p2=165005

Feel free to give me your opinions on this. I don’t want to be a hater, I just want to understand what has driven these folx to make the documentary and deal with it this way. Especially why they’d mention all his companies and his (very reductive, capitalist, megalomaniac) way of thinking, yet often compliment it or portray it as something that’s okay or explains his behavior and hence makes it normal. Thank you for taking your time to read this!