Q&A with Christian Petzold on December 2

Inspired by Herk Harvey’s 1962 horror classic Carnival of Souls, Petzold’s final entry in the “ghost trilogy” locates its chills in the cold cruelty of contemporary male-driven business culture. The title character, played with remarkable poise by Nina Hoss, is an eager businesswoman from the former East who discovers that the “good job” she’s just landed in Hanover isn’t as promising as it seems—and that her past life is not so easily left behind. Deftly pivoting between psychological horror and cool realism, Yella is at once an eerie reworking of genre norms and a potent rumination on neoliberal capitalism following the uneven reunification of the two Germanies.

Explore the Christian Petzold brochure flipbook or read below.