Dark-skinned Stella was adopted as a baby, but before she gets married, she wants to meet her birth mother. However, the first meeting is a shock: her mother Beate is a white redneck who sits at the supermarket checkout and secretly drinks Piccolo from a bottle. Apart from that, she doesn't really feel the need to get to know her daughter. But Stella is not put off by her brusque manner.
Acting
Jutta Speidel's unflinching, unsympathetic maternal wrecking ball.
Writing
Brutal honesty about adoption fantasies crashing into reality.
Director
Jan Ruzicka
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
One of few German films centering Black German experience through adoption, released years before comparable mainstream visibility. Dennenesch Zoudé was among the most prominent Black actresses in German television at the time.
The Piccolo bottle becomes a visual motif for Beate's entire existence: cheap, hidden in plain sight, and desperately trying to feel like champagne. Director Ruzicka reportedly insisted on real supermarket locations to capture authentic regional working-class texture.
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