Original Title: Sok od višnje

Year: 2023

Length: 90 min
Country:  Bosnia and Herzegovina

Feature Narrative

Cast & Credits

Director: Mersiha Husagić

Producer: Birgit Gernböck, Mersiha Husagić, Niklas Löffler

Screenwriter: Mersiha Husagić

Editor: Mersiha Husagić

Music: Casper Clemens, Martin Gerth, Markus Maria Hübner, Heinz Rink

Cinematography: Oliver Nimz

Sound design: Alexander Precht

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Cast: Mersiha Husagić, Niklas Löffler, Malte Arnold, Morena Bartel, Horst Beelitz, Jimmy Bontatibus, Mario Čondrić, Aline de Oliveira, Dženata Dizdarević, Biljana Dugandžić, Fadil Džip, Hurmeta Husagić, Adis Marevac, Amer Orman, Lejla Salkiž.

Film Synopsis:

Cherry Juice, which takes the viewer from Hamburg to Sarajevo, tells the story of two people for whom cinema means everything. Selma, a Bosnian screenwriter from Sarajevo, has written a screenplay processing her experiences as a refugee in Germany from the Yugoslav War. But four weeks before the shoot is scheduled to begin, the project is canceled. While drowning her frustrations in alcohol, Selma fails to inform all of the crew members of the shoot’s cancellation, while an Hamburg-based actor named Niklas is preparing his role for the film—only learning upon his arrival in Sarajevo that the film is no more. Spontaneously, he decides to stay in Sarajevo, where he crosses paths with Selma, and their worlds collide: the pessimistic, reserved Bosnian and the optimistic, charming German, both connected by the same dream of making movies. They spend New Year's Eve together and experience an exciting and life-changing night.

Director's Biography

Mersiha Husagić was born in 1989 in former Yugoslavia. In September 1992, she left her home country Bosnia with her mother because of the war, meeting her father in Hamburg where he had previously fled due to political persecution. Here, they first lived as refugees in an asylum seeker shelter, then with a German family under one roof. As a child, Mersiha loved films, and by the time she was in high school, she was acting in German film and television productions, later attending acting school in Hamburg and since working as an actress in film and television. In 2015, she enrolled in The University of Art in Hamburg with Professor Wim Wenders, directing several short films and a documentary before graduating in 2020. “Cherry Juice” is her first feature film.