Das Fräulein

Das Fraulein portrays the lives of three women who fled from former Yugoslavia and are trying to build new lives in modern Switzerland. After a disappointing love, Ruza has built a wall around herself and runs her canteen, which she clings to for security, with a good business instinct. The older Mila never stops dreaming and still wants to return to her homeland with her passive husband. Facing these two adult women is the young Ana, who fled her homeland more because of her illness and wants to appropriate the life in Switzerland that she so yearns for.
The past of the three women in Yugoslavia is not detailed, but forms a charged backdrop to their current choices. The women’s lives cross and influence each other, but not always wholeheartedly. Their mutual encounters mean each has to review her own reality.
Das Fr a ulein is about uprooting, loneliness and desires. Staka’s modest film debut builds on the strong acting performances of the three actresses (from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) but also on Staka’s subtle scenario that avoids false sentimentality and melodrama and leads to both powerful and suggestive dialogues and scenes. (PvH)