Stella. A Life. (German: Stella. Ein Leben.) is a 2023 German biographical drama film. This is based on the true story of Stella Goldschlag, who delivered hundreds of fellow Jews to the Gestapo from September 1943 until the end of the war. Paula Beer plays Stella.
The film premiered at the 2023 Zurich Film Festival. It went on to be shortlisted as the German submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film for the 97th Academy Awards.
Contents
Plot
In 1940 Berlin, Stella Goldschlag is a vivacious, talented young woman in Nazi Berlin working as a Jazz singer despite the repressive climate and the risk of passing as a non-Jew.
When tides turn and she is forced into hiding with her parents, Stella begins working with a passport forger. Exposed and captured by the Gestapo, she faces the most dire and deadly of choices: face deportation to Auschwitz for herself and her parents or become an informant for the Gestapo identifying Jews hiding in Berlin. After the war, Stella is put on trial.
Cast
Paula Beer as Stella Goldschlag
Jannis Niewöhner as Rolf Isaaksohn
Katja Riemann as Toni Goldschlag
Lukas Miko as Gerhard Goldschlag
Bekim Latifi as Aaron Salomon
Damian Hardung as Manfred Kübler
Joel Basman as Peter
Maeve Metelka as Inge
Julia Anna Grob as Hansi Meyer
Rony Herman as Heinz Gottschalk
Max Krause as Günther Abrahamson
Joshua Seelenbinder as Cioma Schönhaus
Jeanette Spassova as Ms. Rotholz