Controversial economist Martin Armstrong is the focus of Marcus Vetter’s German documentary, world-premiering in competition at the Dutch festival

Miscarriage-of-justice documentaries are a dime a dozen these days, but few can boast the global sweep or geopolitical context of Marcus Vetter’s English-language German production The Forecaster. An unambiguously partisan profile of controversial economics whiz Martin Armstrong — who spent a decade in jail on technicalities relating to fraud charges — it plays like a slickly elaborate sketch for a future Hollywood retelling in the Wolf of Wall Street mold.
World-premiering in the main competition at IDFA, the blandly titled but discussion-provoking and decidedly topical glimpse into the arcane mysteries of high finance should pick up its share of festival play and TV exposure. The latter format will of course cramp one of the picture’s strong suits, namely Georg Zengerling’s wide-screen cinematography, which consistently adds color and excitement to what could easily have been a dry affair.

Hopping locations from Bangkok, where we first meet Armstrong in amusing consultation with a fortune-teller, to New York, Australia and beyond, Vetter and co-director Karin Steinberger craft an accessible and palatable package, which is careful to remain on the right side of comprehensibility. Indeed, a recurring refrain is that Armstrong’s computer-generated models for predicting economic cycles  — involving the mathematical principles of pi  — are so complex and advanced that only Armstrong himself is capable of grasping their byzantine intricacies. Read the full review @ HollywoodReporter.com