“Anton is a capitalist in spite of himself. With a ready smile and adept hands, he has an unparalleled talent for turning junk into valuables--dilapidated tanks into new tractors, for example--making a healthy profit for himself on the black market in the process. We pick up with Anton at the close of World War II and follow his own bizarre development as a petty-bourgeois entrepreneur in tandem with the rise of the newly-formed and socialist German Democratic Republic. Eccentric, always satiric and often downright irreverent, Anton the Magician is truly a fresh breath from the East, as revealing of the country's history and culture as any serious-minded social critique.” Tony Safford, AFI