Ask Adele
ASK ADELE follows my mother, Adele, as she lives her passion as a background actor in Hollywood. Throughout this film, we explore where her love for movies began and witness our playful and loving mother-daughter dynamic.
Adele learned early how to blend into the background, as it was essential to her survival. Born in 1938 in Zawiercie, Poland to a Jewish family, she and her parents fled to Vienna in 1942 with false papers. They hid in plain sight, relying on smarts, luck, and the courage of friends and strangers. Adele and her mother saw multiple films weekly, as SS soldiers rarely entered theaters. The movie houses of wartime Vienna became our family’s safe haven, a place to escape the horrors of genocide and into a world of fantasy.
In 1958, Adele turned childhood fantasy into reality and moved to Los Angeles to work in Hollywood. She worked in casting and as a secretary at various studios, and after raising a family, she became a background actor in her late 50s, a passion she's pursued ever since. I attempt to untangle this history that Adele has been hesitant to discuss until recently and understand how it has influenced me.
A selection of film stills from the project Ask Adele
