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 yella interview
How the West was won. The cat was finally let out of the bag this year, when Nina Hoss picked up the Silver Bear Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for her brilliant turn in Yella. For years, Hoss has been the toast of Germany’s film and theatre scene, first winning the hearts of the nation for her turn as a prostitute in The Girl Called Rosemary (1996). Arguably, though, her best work has been in the three films she’s made with director Christian Petzfold - playing a Hitchcock-style “cool” blonde in Something To Remind Me, a revenge seeking mother in Wolfsburg, and now, in Yella, an East German woman looking to get ahead in her life by taking a new job in the West. Petzfold’s latest brings up many issues which have cropped up in Germany, post-unification, and it was this that made Hoss want to play the eponymous character in Yella. She says, “I really like the fact that the character is on the search for herself and her new life. This is so much a picture of Germany today, where we are now wondering what we are living for. And it is a very individual story of a woman from the East. Yella doesn’t leave because she wants to; she is forced to leave her hometown as the only way to find a job. It is sad. It is also a story of a woman in a man’s world.” Hoss gives Yella nuances and an ability to capture the hearts of the audience, which sweeps us along as the character is seemingly transformed from bullied girlfriend into a domineering and hungry businesswoman. Petzfold immediately poses questions as to whether this is a good thing by ensuring that the West is depicted in a cold, harsh way. It’s the perfect aesthetic for a film that has a denouement that will split audiences.  For Hoss it was great to be back on set with Petzfold, of whom she says, “We realised that we have the same language and it helps when you work with someone who really knows your work. Once production starts you just start working and get into the depth of character and scenes and situations in a faster way. That is why I hope we still continue to do movies. It is just luck, like with Chabrol and Huppert, where you find someone that you can work with very well, and it moves the work on a bit further.” On celluloid at least, it’s a director/star relationship that seems made in heaven.
Kaleem Aftab
Yella, on selected release 21 September 07.
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