Plot
In the aftermath of WWII, Nelly, a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, horribly disfigured from a bullet wound in her face, undergoes a series of facial reconstruction surgeries and decides to find her husband Johnny who works at the Phoenix club in Berlin. Undoubtedly, Nelly is stunning, yet, her new self is beyond recognition, so Johnny, the man who may have betrayed her to the Nazis, will never imagine that the woman in front of him who bears an uncomfortable and unsettling resemblance to his late wife, is indeed her. Without delay, and with the intention to collect the deceased's inheritance, Nelly will go along with Johnny's plot and she will impersonate the dead woman, giving the performance of a lifetime before friends and relatives in a complex game of deceit, duplicity, and ultimately, seduction. In the end, during this masquerade, as the fragile and broken Nelly tries to find out whether Johnny betrayed her or not, she will have to dig deep into her wounded psyche and inevitably choose between revenge and forgiveness.
Written by
Christian Petzold, Harun Farocki, Hubert Monteilhet
Directed by
Christian Petzold
Crew
Production Countries
Poland, Germany
Production Companies
Bayerischer Rundfunk, WDR, ARTE, Schramm Film, Tempus
Languages
English, Deutsch
Awards
17 wins & 30 nominations