Anyone who loses loved ones unexpectedly in an accident wakes up in a different life. Antonia lost her parents and her sister. Steffen lost his wife and son.
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Antonia Joschko (24) from Berlin spends Christmas vacation 2014 with her family in Namibia. She was 16 years old at the time. On December 29, the Joschkos want to meet a family friend. While driving through the Namibian desert, a vehicle crashes into their car at far too high a speed. The accident kills Antonia's mother, father and older sister, as well as three other people in the driver's car. For Antonia, a difficult journey into a new life begins: "That day, the life I'd led up to that point ended."

The young woman is now on her own. She has to decide: give up or carry on. Burying herself is not an option for Antonia. Relatives and friends support Antonia in the early days. She tries to cope with her everyday life and not let her pain show. She keeps experiencing flashbacks of the accident. Antonia does not want to give in to the trauma, does not want to let death determine her life. She decides to undergo therapy.

Antonia has been fighting for justice for her dead relatives for eight years. The man who caused the accident is on trial in a court in Namibia for six counts of murder. She regularly flies to the hearings in the African country - first as a witness, then as a listener and as a plaintiff. In Namibia, she repeatedly goes to the scene of the accident and erects memorial stones. Here she is close to her family.

Nora Kirchner was one month and six days old when she lost her mother and brother in September 2020. In an accident on a country road in the Palatinate, she is the only survivor in her mother's car. From one second to the next, Nora becomes a half-orphan and her father Steffen a widower and single parent. Steffen Kirchner cannot let go of the loss of his wife and son. The accident has shaped his everyday life for two years: "You can never get used to the pain, to the loss. You just try to live with it. It's hard."

As a survivor, the little girl, as Nora is called by her father, now comes first. Since the accident, life at the Kirchners has been centered around her. She is protected like a treasure. The loss of Steffen's wife Sarah and his son Finn weighs heavily. There are mementos everywhere in the Kirchners' everyday life. Right at the entrance to the apartment, a small altar with photos and toys of Finn reminds us of the family life they once shared. Steffen Kirchner drives to the accident site once a week. He has erected crosses in memory of the dead and as a reminder.

The man who caused the accident will stand trial in summer 2022. The 29-year-old had driven his Jaguar off the road at far too high a speed when he crashed into the Kirchners' vehicle. After five days of trial, the verdict was handed down: three and a half years in prison. Steffen Kirchner is glad that the young man has to go to prison. Nevertheless, he does not feel that justice has been done. Because the sentence won't bring his family back to him either.

A 37° film about people who have to learn to live with the loss and pain after the accidental death of their loved ones and who take very different paths in the process.

‍here go to the movie in the zdf mediathek and here to the movie on youtube.