Oscar Winner to Star in New ZDF/UFA Co-Production

MAINZ, March 3: ZDF
Enterprises announced that actor Karl Markovics, who stars in the Oscar-winning
film The Counterfeiters, will
play the lead role in the UFA production Ship of No Return—The Final
Voyage of the Gustloff.

In Ship of No
Return—The Final Voyage of the Gustloff, Markovics will play the role of the corvette captain and hard-line
Nazi Wilhelm Petri, who is itching for the opportunity to prove himself once
again and to strengthen the German Navy with new strike power. However, he is
so obsessed that he underestimates the dangers lurking in the Baltic Sea, which
is heavily mined, with the enemy closer than he thought.

Ship of No
Return—The Final Voyage of the Gustloff is a co-production between ZDF, ZDF Enterprises and
the UFA. ZDF Enterprises is handling worldwide marketing of the production,
which cost $15.2 million, making it the most expensive UFA project of all time.

Markovics played the main
role in The Counterfeiters,
which was awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

—By Irene Lew