Full Description
Decades before West German filmmakers were able to grapple with issues of power and personal responsibility, the East German filmmaker Konrad Wolf (PROFESSOR MAMLOCK, 1961) crafted this uneasy romantic tale. The film is set in Bulgaria as thousands of Greek Jews await transport to Auschwitz. The central character is an SS officer, a frustrated painter with a fatalistic view of life who smuggles arms and medicine for the Bulgarian resistance. The heroine is a teacher, a Salonican whose courageous spirit gravitates toward hope and renewal even on the brink of annihilation. STERNE is surprising because of the powerful vision behind every shot, the unrelenting intelligence of an auteur long overlooked in the West. Special Jury Prize in the 1958 Cannes Film Festival.
