Fraulein (2006)

Ruza left Belgrade for Switzerland as a young woman full of hope for a new and better life. Twentyfive years later she appears to have achieved everything: She owns a canteen in Zurich, ... See full summary »

Director:

Andrea Staka

Writers:

Andrea Staka, Eva Vitija-Scheidegger (contributor) (as Eva Vitija)

Stars:

Mirjana Karanovic, Marija Skaricic, Ljubica Jovic

9 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mirjana Karanovic	...	Ruza
Marija Skaricic	...	Ana
Ljubica Jovic	...	Mila
Andrea Zogg	...	Franz
Pablo Aguilar	...	Fredi
Zdenko Jelcic	...	Ante
David Imhoof	...	Stefan
Sebastian Krähenbühl	...	Mann in Bar
Oliver Zgorelec	...	Geiger
Annette Wunsch	...	Ärztin
Kenneth Huber	...	Arzt
Anikó Donáth	...	Apothekerin
Hans Suter	...	Mann mit Möven
Stefan Suske	...	Autofahrer
Vera Bommer	...	Sheila

Storyline

Ruza left Belgrade for Switzerland as a young woman full of hope for a new and better life. Twentyfive years later she appears to have achieved everything: She owns a canteen in Zurich, which she manages with a firm grip and financial success. Ruza values her meticulously structured daily routine, both in her professional and private life. Ruzas's orderly world shifts when 22 year-old Ana from Sarajevo enters the scene. She feels threatened by Ana's direct and impulsive manner while at the same time she is intrigued by her zest for life. Slowly a friendship develops between these two self-willed women. However, a certain distance between them remains: Ruza's afraid to open herself up completely, and Ana has a secret too difficult for herself to reveal.

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Plot Keywords:

female nudity | sex scene | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Switzerland Germany Bosnia and Herzegovina

Language:

German Swiss German Bosnian

Release Date:

25 January 2007 (Germany)

Also Known As:

Fraulein

Filming Locations:

Switzerland

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$2,449, 21 September 2008, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$2,449, 21 September 2008

Company Credits

Production Co:

Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG, Quinte Film, Schweizer Fernsehen (FS)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

81 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Mirjana Karanovic, Marija Skaricic and Ljubica Jovic don't speak German and/or Swiss-German. Although the script had all the German texts translated, they had to learn their lines by heart and had to act without having a true feeling for the language.

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Soundtracks

Gypsy Kolo (Ma Maren Ma)
Written by Ran du Bandurovici
Performed by Jony Iliev & Band featuring Martin Lubenov
(C) Asphalt Tango Records GmbH, Berlin

User Reviews

Das Fräulein, or: What is a Swiss movie?

This many times awarded Swiss movie was produced by "Dschoint Ventr", an innovative Swiss film organization that is eager to distribute Swiss movies world wide. Fact is that Swiss movies are almost unknown in the US. In Switzerland, even many filmmakers are convinced that the topics are mostly too Swiss-specific and that great Swiss actors do not exist. So far for the present. For the past, Switzerland's greatest filmmaker, Kurt Früh (1915-79) is nowadays highly criticized for the alleged lack of disclosing the miserable social situation in the 50ies and 60ies and for having strongly used Italian Neo-Realist movies in order to make his own films. I assure you: both is not true. But nevertheless, not a single one of many hundreds of Swiss movies made between the silent time and den 70ies are available on international DVDs.

Social topics have a long tradition in Swiss film. I just remember Kurt Früh's "Bäckerei Zürrer" where the conflicts between the early Italian immigrants and the indigenous population in Zürich are focused, or later especially in the movies of Kurt Gloor (1942-1998), f.ex. "Die Plötzliche Einsamkeit Des Konrad Steiner". Not to forget the movies of Alain Tanner, although his movies are all in French and thus form a minority in the rest of Switzerland. Also the present movie deals with immigrants, has a strong social vein, but unlike Früh's and Gloor's movie, you hardly hear Swiss German spoken. The three main actresses - famous artists imported from Ex-Yugoslawia as if there would not be enough talented Yugoslawian women familiar with the jobs shown in the movie - speak broken High German. From the rest of the cast only the two men - Andrea Zogg and the Spaniard Pablo Aguilar - are to be mentioned: Zogg is to see about four or five times for possibly 10 minutes, Aguilar for totally perhaps 2 minutes, and the rest of the crew for fragments of seconds. So, an interaction between the Yugoslawian immigrants and the Swiss population is out of the question and the movie is showing nothing else than how the three women get along, partly speaking Serbian/Croatian and partly broken German. In this movie, there is no trace of the wit, the humor, the tears-causing miseries and the whole empathy of Kurt Früh's movies, but nothing either of the socialist problems brought up in Kurt Gloor's films. This movie was produced in Switzerland, that is all. It could play anywhere in Europe, there is nothing Swiss-specific in this movie, except perhaps the five seconds when your hear Zurich's "Radio 24".

Let me tell you one thing: As long as Kurt Früh's and Kurt Gloor's movies are not subtitled, engraved in international DVDs and available around the world, such mediocre and questionable films like "Das Fräulein" have no right to go around the world.