Yella

A prize winner at the Berlin Film Festival, YELLA is a metaphysical thriller about a young woman trying to escape her past. Narrowly escaping her volatile ex-husband, Yella (Nina Hoss) flees her small hometown in former East Germany for a new life in the West. She finds a promising job with Philipp (Devid Striesow), a handsome business executive with whom an unlikely romance soon blossoms. But just as Yella seems poised to realize her dreams, she finds herself haunted by buried truths that threaten to destroy her newfound happiness.

Inspired by Herk Harvey’s 1962 cult classic Carnival of Souls, Yella offers a bracing critique of modern capitalist society by considering the current migration of men and women from former Eastern Bloc countries seeking prosperity in the West. It is Christian Petzold’s fourth feature film and his third collaboration with Nina Hoss.

“YELLA is the kind of movie that tantalizes the mind with possibilities without solving the puzzle.” (Stephen Holden, New York Times)

“It’s one of those films that keeps swirling in your brain once it’s done.” (Sara Cardace, New York Magazine)

“Christian Petzold's disquieting German thriller feels modest while you're watching it, but makes a stronger-than-expected impact.” (Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News)