movie "The Narrative": A new perspective on ex-UBS trader Kweku Adoboli
Former UBS investment banker Kweku Adoboli was convicted of fraud in 2012. Swiss filmmakers Bernard Weber and Martin Schilt take a new look at Adoboli the man with their documentary "The Narrative".
12.03.2026, 06:30
12.03.2026, 06:31
SDA
The film opens with parts of an email that Adoboli wrote to a UBS accountant before the whole fraudulent house of cards collapsed. In it, he admits that he traded off the books to hide losses - in the hope of recouping them later.
He takes full responsibility and is sorry, Adoboli reads out what he wrote at the time. He wrote an e-mail in his greatest naivety, he says now.
Not a "criminal mastermind"?
After a trading loss of 2.3 billion US dollars, Adoboli was sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud, but was able to leave prison early in 2015 due to good behavior. The jury acquitted him of the charge of accounting fraud.
From 2008 until his arrest in September 2011, he allegedly circumvented trading limits at UBS in London with unauthorized speculation and fictitious transactions. How did this come about, from Adoboli's perspective? That's what "The Narrative" is about. Because Adoboli cannot see himself in the picture painted by the media: Gambler or "Criminal Mastermind".
The documentary, which will be released in cinemas in German-speaking Switzerland on Thursday, aims to show the mechanisms at the bank and at the trading desk: the overwork, the megalomania of the investment banking world. Adoboli did not act for his own profit, did not enrich himself. He sees himself as a victim of the system, of the mood in society at the time.
Film on the brink after deportation
The film lives above all from its protagonists - first and foremost Adoboli, who tells his story in a reflective and authentic way, providing deep insights into his life. The 2012 court case is re-enacted in the film in Ghana with black amateur actors, with verbatim dialog between the public prosecutor and witnesses from the trial transcript.
14 years have passed since the initial idea for the documentary. The interviews for the film and most of the shooting took place in Accra, Ghana, where Adoboli now lives. The two directors had also accompanied him after his release from prison until his deportation from England in 2018, where Adoboli had lived since he was twelve years old.
After that, the filmmakers lost contact with Adoboli for almost a year. "We no longer believed that the film would still exist," said Martin Schilt at the premiere at the Solothurn Film Festival in January. "Then we visited Kweku in Ghana."
*This text by Young-Sim Song (AWP) was realized with the help of the Gottlieb and Hans Vogt Foundation.
