A Year Ago in Winter

In Munich, interior designer Eliane Richter, Corinna Harfouch, is shown under the constant stress of a demanding career. She hires the painter Max Hollander, Josef Bierbichler, to create a portrait of her children, Alexander Richter, Cyril Sjöström, and Lilli Richter, Karoline Herfurth. Eliane wants the painting to memorialize Alexander, who took his own life about a year earlier, and she provides pictures and videos of him to help the artist capture his presence. She requests a double portrait with Lilly, but Lilly is repulsed by the idea of having her dead brother on the wall “for decoration.” Lilly is an emotionally troubled ballet student, already feeling the pressure of career and commitment, and unlike her mother, she is not disciplined enough to avoid conflict. Under the weight of studies, she loses her leading role at the Theatre Academy due to disputes with her teacher, and she searches for closeness and intimacy in her relationship with the artist Aldo, Mišel Matičević, albeit with little success.

During the sessions, Lilly is initially reserved while Max Hollander works to see beyond her guarded surface and draw out her character in the painting. As they work, Max begins to sense the depth of Lilly’s and Alexander’s bond, and he also reconnects with his own past losses. The process gradually forges a trust between painter and model, and their evolving connection helps Lilly confront her grief in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Their collaboration deepens the sense that the siblings’ shared history is more complex than Eliane anticipated, and the painter’s perspective allows him to glimpse the emotional landscape that the family has kept hidden.

As the portrait takes shape, Eliane’s expectations shift. The final work does not satisfy her initial hopes, yet it quietly dissolves some of her resistance to Lilly’s pain and to the memory of Alexander. Lilly begins to come to terms with the mystery surrounding her brother’s suicide, accepting that she may never fully understand why it happened, and she starts to find a path toward forgiveness.

The story is framed by a meditation on facades within a family, as Karoline Herfurth has described in interviews: “a family of facades which falls apart by suicide. In this family, one must not make mistakes, one must not fail, one does not learn to deal with failure, to ask each other for help.”

Last Updated: October 07, 2025 at 09:24