In a period where intellectual property theft is an issue for the layperson via techbros peddling artificial intelligence which scrapes the internet for its dataset and corporations are plagued by piracy, the concept of ownership exists in its most rocky form ever. Almost of all it is born out of a sense of entitlement. We’re not talking about the notion of “if buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing” by which a consumer has used ethical, legal, and approved means of trade to buy something and is taken advantage of by the seller and therefore sees piracy as a moral right of retaliation, but the idea that someone specifically or a company would bypass the purchase process entirely to take what isn’t theirs. What is the appropriate recourse in such a case? What is a step too far? What isn’t far enough? These are a few of the questions posed by documentarian Matthew Testa (The Human Element) in his latest project, Stealing Magic, which is having its world premiere in the Spotlight Documentary section of Tribeca Film Festival 2026.
Center: Andi Gladwin in STEALING MAGIC. Photo courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
Piracy is a problem that impacts every industry. Some folks opt to ignore it, others absorb it into their bottom line, and others try to slow it or put a stopper on it. Vanishing Inc. co-founders Andi Gladwin and Joshua Jay found themselves at this exact crossroads when they were directed to the site Erdnase Magic Shop, a purveyor of magic-based materials originating from their site and many competitors at reduced prices (including free). Through a combination of captured footage, talking head interviews, and recreation, Testa takes audiences on a ride through a lesser-known part of the magic world as Gladwin and Vanishing Inc. COO George Luck go on an international hunt for the operators, an intention with quite a few unintended side effects.
To tell this story, Testa uses three converging/overlapping methods. One is through following Gladwin. He’s the way in to the film as the logo for Magic Castle Entertainment in the opening credits gives way to the actual Magic Castle, famed private club in Hollywood, California. We observe Gladwin at work giving a show before transitioning to his life as co-founder of Vanishing Inc. and the start of the journey into magic piracy. From here, the talking head interviews come in with various members from the magic community, allowing us, the viewing audience, to put faces to the stories and to better understand the consequences of magical piracy. This gives way to the second part wherein, during different parts of the film, sometimes the stories are backed up with captured footage, either from security cameras, news reports, or material from Testa’s team, and sometimes it’s a recreation using stand-ins for dramatic effect. Finally, the third part is Testa following Gladwin and Luck as they globetrot from Hollywood to the F.B.I Headquarters in Washington, D.C., to parts of Serbia, Egypt, France, and others. These three parts weave in and out of each other to form a narrative tapestry that’s both entertaining as hell and undoubtably perilous. With the exception of one sequence in which Gladwin’s crew is smart enough to find outside help to assist with their investigation, they do everything on their own. If not for the largely playful score by composer Anna Drubich (Barbarian; Werewolves Within), the whole of Stealing Magic would feel like an intense crime thriller instead of a dramatic mystery (or even a great episode of Leverage), the differences between the genres and tones being a hair’s breadth. Gladwin’s team takes a great deal of risks as they quest to find a version of justice, should it be reachable. Unlike magic, which is prepped, practiced, and designed so that the magician is in as full control of the outcome as possible; the real world is absent such provisions, making the highly-gifted tricksters ill-suited and out of their depth nearly the entire time.
L-R: George Luck and Andi Gladwin in STEALING MAGIC. Photo courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival.
Two things become apparent very quickly: the magicians Testa features are absolutely outstanding and only multi-winner of Penn & Teller: Fool Us’s Ondřej Pšenička seems to have the wherewithal to be in the field tracking down pirates. I’m not suggesting that Lucy Darling wouldn’t be able to riff with the best or that Penn & Teller couldn’t devise some way to confound, it’s just that we are not watching real-life versions of Now You See Me’s Four Horseman at work. These are regular people with a specific skillset driven by righteous anger. Granted, that mostly describes Gladwin, but that anger isn’t his alone to bear, it’s spread throughout the magic community, captured through the various interviews presented by Testa from Teller, Carisa Hendrix (on-stage name Lucy Darling), Michael Murray, and several others. Testa takes great pains, once established with our central trio of Gladwin, Jay, and Luck, to demonstrate the dwindling reach of magicians, the importance of their online sales, and the very personal impacts that pirates like Erdnase Magic Shop have had on the larger magic community. It’s not just that sites like these are offering the same products for less than the original seller, it’s that it directly steals profits from the people who make them. Forget whatever ethics one feels about circumventing Microsoft’s 365 subscription plans by finding a cracked desktop version in order to maintain ownership of whatever you write via their software, we’re talking about funds not going to an individual creator who relies on the proceeds made from the sales to survive, all of those funds going to someone who did little more than slap a lower price on someone else’s work. What Testa is able to demonstrate is the real human impact of piracy on authors and creators who find their life’s works copied and sold without ever receiving acknowledgement or reaping the benefits. Horrifically, when confronted with the fact that they are doing harm, the next play by these sites is extortion, only furthering the anger, which leads to steps outside one’s comfort zone and perhaps just a little left of the law when all legal recourses stall out.
Stealing Magic is a riveting watch. Much like when watching a magic performance, we find ourselves equally dazzled by the lengths the featured players go to and we feel a real sense of danger until the conclusion of the film. One does feel a little taken away from the reality of what’s going on between the dramatizations (when the actual footage and conversation is tense enough) and a speech given by Gladwin near the conclusion which feels more for the camera than for the audience to whom he’s speaking. Outside of these moments in which we’re reminded that we’re watching a documentary, one can’t help but hold their breath to see what’s going to happen next. We feel so involved through Gladwin’s understandable fixation, even if we agree that such a fixation may just lead to greater trouble. Whether or not any of this is worth it really remains up to the individual, viewers and participants alike. For some, theft of magic might not seem like a big deal, especially during a period in which entertainers are frequently seen as less important in the grander scope of the world’s problems, but where do people go for distraction or to feel less glum in times of crisis? By making sure to focus on the beings behind the tricks, Testa ensures that we never forget the human element, bridging the divide between ethereal hypothetical and tangible reality.
Screened during Tribeca Film Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official Tribeca Film Festival Stealing Magic webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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