Sommersturm (Marco Kreuzpaintner, 2004)

Summer Storm was a success in Germany largely because of the casting of household name Robert Stadlober as the lead character, a teenager grappling with his sexuality. For a foreign audience not armed with that context the film is basically just another coming-of-age and coming-out piece, with nothing much in terms of plot trajectory to distinguish it from countless others. The setting of a summer camp and rowing competition for youth clubs does give it a fraction more colour than the normal angsty urban setting, and the accompanying mood is refreshingly upbeat too, but it comes at the price of a pedestrian feelgood moral to the story along the lines of tolerance and accepting what you are und so weiter.

5/10