STARS
Love Behind Barbed Wire: Sterne (Stars) by Konrad Wolf to be Rediscovered in Cannes
Cannes Classics celebrates the centennial of Konrad Wolf’s birth by screening a restored version of Sterne (Stars), the black and white masterpiece that propelled this committed German filmmaker to fame. Weaving a love story into the heart of the Holocaust, the director poignantly captures human resistance in the face of the absurdity of evil.
Konrad Wolf, the emblematic director of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), spent the bulk of his work exploring the wounds of the 20th century by defying official censorship with humanist sensitivity and an assumed anti-Nazism. Raised in Moscow after his family fled Nazi Germany, the filmmaker showcases his unfailing artistic and political commitment in 1959 with Sterne (Stars), one of the first films of the Seventh Art to sharply confront German responsibility in the Holocaust.
Inspired by the recollections of Bulgarian screenwriter Angel Wagenstein, Sterne (Stars), set in 1943, tells the tragic love story of Ruth (Sascha Kruscharska), an imprisoned Greek Jewish teacher, and Walter (Jürgen Frohriep), a German sergeant posted in a Bulgarian transit camp. Behind barbed wire, a fragile connection blossoms between them, borne of thwarted hopes and dreams shattered by the Nazi machine. By staging the story of this brief affair in a camp before deportation to Auschwitz, Konrad Wolf reminds us with sensitivity that love, however fleeting, will always be an act of resistance in the face of the unspeakable.
Upon its release, Sterne (Stars) was awarded the Jury’s Special Prize at the Festival de Cannes and Konrad Wolf became internationally known. Foregoing a dramatic approach, he opts for an intimate angle, where every gesture and every gaze is significant, and as such delivers an essential film on the subversive resilience of humankind, reminding us of the power of cinema in the face of Historical tragedies.
