Stella: A Life

Stella Goldschlag, a young German Jew, grows up in Berlin during the rule of the Nazi regime. Despite all the repressive measures of the time, she dreams of a career as a jazz singer. After she is forced to go into hiding with her parents in February 1943, her life turns into a culpable tragedy wherein, through a betrayal, she is inevitably caught by the Gestapo. After being tortured and threatened, she is forced to become a “grabber." In order to save herself and her parents from deportation to Auschwitz, Stella begins to systematically betray other Jews by turning them over to authorities. Featuring a "dynamite performance" (Filmuforia) by Paula Beer (Transit, Undine, and Afire), Stella: A Life tells the shocking real life story of Goldschlag and her complicated position as both victim and representative of the great evils ordinary people are capable of when pushed to the edge.

The special relevance of Stella Goldschlag's story for today's audience lies in the complexity of the protagonist and the hopelessness of her situation: “‘Stella – A Life’ is a breathtakingly modern story. Her main character could be one of us: she is young, self-confident and in love with herself. This woman is a perpetrator – but also a victim. She forces us into the dilemma of betrayal. "How would we have decided?” says director and writer Kilian Riedhof.