With Paula Beer as a guarantee for success, at the Zurich film Festival arrives, in the Gala section, “Stella. Ein Leben“ by Kilian Riedhof, a depiction of the real life story of Stella Goldschlag.
In 1943 Berlin, to save herself and her parents from deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp, aspiring Jazz singer Stella Goldschlag became a denunciator and delivered hundreds of her Jewish brothers and sisters to the Nazi regime.
The genesis of the film comes with an article that caught the attention of Kilian Riedhof. The title was ‘”The Blond Poison” and what drew the director to the story was the ambivalence of this person as it was impossible, at the same time to either justify her action or condemn them. With the help of Paula Beer and the ambivalence within her acting, Riedhof depicts a modern character who is quite self-centered and a bit narcissistic.
Plot
1944: Stella Goldschlag wants to become a jazz singer and dreams of a career on Broadway. But the Nazis rule Germany. And Stella is Jewish. After Stella is forced to go into hiding with her parents, her life turns into a culpable tragedy. Through a betrayal, she is caught by the Gestapo, tortured and turned into a “grabber”: to save herself and her parents from deportation to Auschwitz, Stella begins to systematically betray other Jews.