Lisbon, May 7, 2026 (Lusa) - The story of the Portuguese fraudster Alves dos Reis, responsible for one of the most daring financial frauds of the 20th century, has inspired British director Thomas Napper’s film, which is set to be presented in May in Cannes, France.
In a statement, Beta Cinema revealed that "The Man Who Stole Portugal" is a British company EMU Films production, based on Murray Teigh Bloom's book "The Man Who Stole Portugal", which has been published in Portugal, with filming scheduled to take place in Portugal, the UK and South Africa.
The film is described as a period heist movie with elements of dark humour, tracing a journey from the "glamour and political unrest of 1920s Lisbon to colonial Angola and the printing houses of London."
The British actor James Nelson Joyce, who portrays Artur Alves dos Reis (1896–1955), leads the cast, which features Richard E. Grant, Dominic West, Joel Fry, Herbert Nordrum, Kim Bodnia, and Nia Towle, among others.
"The film will give audiences the excitement of a great heist movie, but with a true story so scandalous that it’s hard to believe it actually happened. It’s entertaining, stylish and fast-paced," said producer Michael Elliott in a press release.
Artur Alves dos Reis became famous for committing various frauds, notably forging 500-escudo notes, contracts, cheques, signatures, and training certificates, to amass a fortune.
He posed as an engineer in Angola, forged the signatures of the Bank of Portugal's directors, and persuaded a British banknote printing firm to produce 200,000 500-escudo notes, which circulated illegally in Portugal and England. This money was used to found the Bank of Angola and Metropolis, in 1925.
“Fraud, forgery and embezzlement were the three crimes Alves Reis committed to amass a fortune,” said the biography available online from the Bank of Portugal, adding that the fraudster was convicted in 1930 and released from prison in 1945.
During the trial, he claimed that his aim was simply to develop Angola.
He died on 9 July 1955, aged 58, penniless, at his home in Lisbon, the Bank of Portugal said.
According to the film’s executive producer, Terry Smith (of Moviedrome), Alves dos Reis was a criminal mastermind who realised that forging a contract to print banknotes was infinitely easier than forging the banknotes themselves.
"The story is also a remarkable premonition: the shock waves it sent through the Portuguese economy and the political collapse that followed echo the money central banks printed during the 2008/2009 financial crisis and during the Covid-19 pandemic," said Terry Smith.
The project for this feature film will be presented at the Film Market, which begins on 12 May and is one of the events running alongside the Cannes Film Festival, in France.
SS/MYAL // ADB.
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