The previous summer could not have been more exciting: Ella Lee didn't go on holiday — instead she got to spend the entire summer holidays shooting the new "HANNI & NANNI" cinema film. Alongside German acting stars such as Jessica Schwarz, Katharina Thalbach, Maria Schrader, Henry Hübchen and the popular The BossHoss singer Sascha Vollmer. Landing one of the coveted roles in this film is therefore not only a huge stroke of luck but also a great honour. "I was absolutely thrilled. It was my first big role, and then in such a wonderful film — just incredible." For six weeks, the cult story was filmed in the most beautiful locations. Since Hanni and Nanni are horse-mad girls and Ella Lee plays a friend of theirs, a Texan exchange student, she also had to learn to ride. She had Western riding lessons, dance lessons, and had to rehearse the choreographies with the others. So intensive rehearsals took place weeks before filming began. "Of course there were some tricky scenes too, because we were shooting with horses. But really everything worked out brilliantly and, above all, was huge fun." It is not only in the film that the girls are friends. The intensive period of rehearsals and shooting welded together the leading actresses Leila and Rosa Meinecke and the rest of the on-screen girl gang, and made them close friends in real life too. "We still do a lot together. Just recently we met up for a weekend and, of course, we always invite each other to our birthdays," Ella Lee recounts, audibly happy. Her school friends think it's really cool that she is in the film. For the cinema release on 25 May 2017 they want to go to the cinema together. "It'll be funny to see myself on the big screen," the young actress muses. Before that, though, she will get to know the glamorous side of the film business: at the film's cinema premiere, Ella Lee will stand on the red carpet amid some of the best-known German actors, in a storm of flashbulbs. With so much good fortune, Ella Lee has to think for a brief moment before she can say what the best thing about this production was. "The mix of everything. The wonderful group, the team, the story, the horses. Simply everything!"
Cinema premiere: 14 May 2017 in Berlin. Cinema release: 25 May 2017