‘Stella. A Life.’ Director Kilian Riedhof Discusses Modern Aspects of a Nazi Informant

variety.com:

Ed Meza @edmezavar Kilian Riedhof’s “Stella. A Life.,” which has its world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival, tells the tragic, fact-based story of Stella Goldschlag, a young Jewish woman in Berlin who, in order to survive, cooperates with the Gestapo to betray other Jews.

The film stars Paula Beer, who won the awards for best actress at the Berlin Film Festival and the European Film Awards for “Undine” in 2020, as well as the award for best young actor or actress at Venice in 2016 for “Frantz.” Riedhof came across Goldschlag’s story around 20 years ago in a newspaper: “The photo of a blond, beautiful woman, very lively, on Kurfürstendamm in the middle of Berlin – for me it was a very modern woman.” Headlined “The Blond Poison,” the article told the story of Goldschlag’s role as a Gestapo informant who betrayed hundreds of people, including friends and acquaintances. “Though I was deeply shocked, I learned that she was also a victim, that she was persecuted by the Nazis, that she was tortured and threatened along with her family with deportation to Auschwitz.

Riedhof says he was intrigued by the ambivalence of the character; he found Goldschlag difficult to define. “Whenever I found a reason to say she’s guilty, there were two others that called for at least some understanding of why she did what she did.

That ambivalence drove me all the way as I was making this film.” In researching the story, Riedhof also read Berlin court documents as well as protocols of Goldschlag’s interrogation by Soviet authorities after the war.