One of the most frightful yet weirdly comforting concepts about life might be the fact that it will always continue. Waves will hit the same shores they hit hundreds of years ago, work and school and daily life will continue whilst seasons quietly change. No matter who leaves today, the sun will rise again tomorrow, in this case over Berlin, illuminating the little lives of nearly four million people. For one person, however, life ends at the very start of this summer day.

The last picture in her camera roll remains this image of the sun, which becomes the merciless key element of the following 97 minutes. Jessie leaves behind her mother Ella, her younger sister Melli, and Lux, the only person present at the moment of the tragedy.

What follows for this unusual trio is learning to live despite the overwhelming question: How can the sun rise again after something like this happens? How can we keep on living?

The quiet star of this movie is definitely Birgit Minichmayr, delivering an incredibly moving portrait of a mother in agony, who nevertheless manages to keep up with the routines of everyday life, if only for the sake of her other daughter, Melli. Fights about who gets a room to themselves have long since become irrelevant for Melli, as she is now struggling through a life without her big sister. Lux, who is more or less directly blamed for the accident, finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into the remaining family, and they soon form a community of shared fate despite their complex dynamics.

Against all odds, the three travel to Tenerife together, each on their own desperate journey to grasp what has happened. It is here that, slowly but surely, a new, fragile form of afterlife carves itself out for the three characters – somewhere between closure and distance, blame and forgiveness, standstill and movement.

DOP Gregory Oke, perhaps best known for his work in “Aftersun“, manages to capture the painful beauty of life after loss through physical, dreamlike images. Extended sound design, intimate conversations, and the film’s multimedia approach create an almost otherworldly, dissociative viewing experience, demonstrating yet again how indifferent life is in the face of tragedy. Or, as director Sandra Wollner put it: “The feeling that, after a tragedy, the world ought to come to a standstill. But it doesn’t. The sun still rises, a garbage truck flashes its indicator without a care, and everyone goes about their daily lives. Life doesn’t have the decency to pause when something terrible happens.”