Product Description Reza left Belgrade more than 25 years ago to seek a new life in Zurich. Now in her fifties, she has completely detached herself from the past. She owns a cafeteria and maintains an orderly, joyless existence. Mila, a waitress there, is a good-humored Croatian woman who also emigrated decades ago, but, unlike Reza, she dreams of returning to a house on the Croatian coast. Both of them receive a jolt when Ana, a young, itinerant woman who has fled Sarajevo, breezes into the cafeteria looking for work. Reza hires her but is annoyed by Ana's impulsive and spirited efforts to inject life into the cafeteria. Gradually the acrimony will dissipate, as Ana, who hides a tragic secret under her passionate spirit, begins to thaw Reza's chill, and their relationship will change both women in ways they never anticipated. Review Most people, upon reading that this is a Swiss film about women rebuilding their lives in Zurich after fleeing the former Yugoslavia, will feel their eyes involuntarily rolling up into their heads.But despite the occasional sluggish passage, Fraulein is an intriguing picture about people struggling in ways that are so personal that they become universal.Ana (Marija Skaricic) is young and pretty, and has fled the Balkans without a plan she lives out of a bus station locker until she gets a job at a cafe. Her boss, Ruza (Mirjana Karanovic), is older and has had more time to adjust to her new life, adopting a hard-as-nails Germanic attitude. Another cafe employee, Mila (Ljubica Jovic), dreams of returning to Croatia where her husband is building a house. It s primarily a character study, and an excellent one. Director Andrea Staka plays the actors like a fine instrument, eliciting anxiety, pain, passion and joy that feel genuine. --Portland Tribune LOCARNO, Switzerland -- The heartache that accompanies reluctant exile as experienced by three women from the former Yugoslavia underpins Andrea Staka's poignant drama Fraulein which won the Golden Leopard for best film in competition at the Locarno International Film Festival. The film is set in Zurich, where one woman from Belgrade, in what is now Serbia, and another from a seaside town in what is now Croatia have spent about 25 years acclimating to life in Switzerland. Their carefully constructed lives are shaken by the arrival of a vivacious young woman from Sarajevo, in what is now Bosnia, who spurns the older pair's cautious way of life. The clash of viewpoints is explored in touching scenes as the three find their assumptions about survival challenged by a jolting reminder of life's unfairness. Making her feature debut, Swiss-born writer-director Staka, whose parents were Yugoslavian exiles, uses the Zurich locations evocatively, writes in-sightful dialogue and draws naturalistic acting from the principals. The result is a picture that should thrive in Europe and at art houses and suggests a bright future for the filmmaker. The contrasts be-tween the two older women are established quickly with Ruza (Mirjana Karanovic), the stern and disciplined unmarried owner of a charmless but busy diner, and Mila (Ljubica Jovic), a jovial and happily married waitress. Both long exiled, Ruza has put Belgrade behind her and is focused on being totally efficient both in her business and her joyless single life, while Mila dreams of retiring to a house on the Adriatic in Croatia. Into the diner one day comes Ana (Marija Skaricic), who drifts contentedly but proves helpful at the restaurant and is offered a job. Her high spirits and engaging willingness to break the rules, even Ruza's, endear her not only to the others in the place but also to its chilly owner. Ana brings a refreshing indifference to flags and borders, and her ability to enjoy life proves infectious. All three women begin to embrace life more until fate deals another bad hand. The scenes of expatriates torn by nostalgic yearning yet determined to make new lives are well drawn, and the sequence