Stella: A Life

Directed by Kilian Riedhof
Film Movement
2023
121 Minutes
Germany
German
Drama, Jewish, Biography
Not Rated
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DVD
$29.95
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Available 10/7/25
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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 still dreams of a career as a jazz singer. After she is forced to go into hiding with her parents in February 1943, her life begins to turn into a culpable tragedy wherein she is inevitably caught by the Gestapo. Tortured and threatened with death, Stella makes the crushing decision to save herself and her parents from deportation to Auschwitz by becoming a "grabber," systematically betraying 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 the great evils ordinary people are capable of when faced with making a morally impossible choice.

Cast

  • Paula Beer
  • Jannis Niewöhner
  • Katja Riemann
  • Lukas Miko
DVD Features

Discs: 1

  • Highest Rating
    "Paula Beer turns in another dynamite performance.... Stella. A Life is an effective exploration of the horrors of war and the devastating emotional and physical effects on the victims in their desperate will to survive...."
    Meredith Taylor, Filmuforia
  • Highest Rating
    "Aesthetically accomplished and well-paced, Stella. A Life is a film whose bubbly appearance conceals some very real cruelty, much like its protagonist..."
    Giorgia Del Don, Cineuropa

Awards & Recognition