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Plot
Young, handsome Sasha (Saša Kekez) lives in Cologne with his family, who emigrated there from the former Yugoslavia two decades earlier and now run a pub. Sasha has considerable talent as a pianist and his mother, Stanka (Željka Preksavec), is convinced he has the ability to accomplish great things, while his father, Vlado (Pedja Bjelec), would be happy if he just made a decent living. Sasha is supposed to be training for an audition with a prestigious music school, but other things are distracting him, namely that he’s gay but hasn't told anyone, especially his parents who are deeply conservative.

Sasha also has a powerful crush on his piano teacher, Gebhard (Tim Bergmann), and when Sasha learns he’s moving to Vienna to pursue his career, he must find a way to declare his feelings before it’s too late. Explaining his situation to his close friend and fellow music student, Jiao (Yvonne Hung Hee), only makes things worse as Sasha realises she’s actually been carrying a torch for him. When Sasha does hatch a scheme to tell Gebhard his secret, nearly everything that could go wrong does…

Verdict
Sasha is one helluva melodramatic maelstrom of a movie that has an awful lot going on both plot- and character-wise. Actually, there’s so much going on it could have easily been a 12-hour TV series, but as it is it leaves you wanting more, daydreaming about what will happen to all the characters and their complicated, colliding lives.

Yes, there are moments that lather up a tad too soap-operatically, notably the slo-mo shooting scene towards the end that is pure Dallas and Dynasty land, and the ending is too neatly tied-up with a bow, but they’re such niggly crits it’s like moaning about the colour of the hotel slippers on your dream holiday to the Maldives. A beautifully shot, beautifully acted, beautifully told story that stays with you long after the credits roll.

Director: Dennis Todorović
Cast: Saša Kekez, Željka Preksavec, Pedja Bjelec, Tim Bergmann, Yvonne Hung Hee, Jasin Mjumjunov, Ljubiša Lupo Grujičić, Arno Kempf
DVD Extras: Behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes
Released: 30 January 2012

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Trailer

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