Altweibersommer (2025)

Elli, Astrid, and Isabella are three women in their late forties who once lived together in a shared apartment. Their traditional summer holiday turns into a turbulent trip on which they eventually leave old patterns behind. Every year, the three women take a trip to a campsite in the Mariazell region. They lead very different lives. Astrid is the most conventional of them: the environmentally conscious teacher is married to Peter, who calls her constantly. She has two children and runs a “plastic-free” household. Isabella studied acting and is still trying to pursue an artistic career, but earns her living as a waitress. Her love life is marked by unstable relationships with men who are already in relationships. Elli is recovering from chemotherapy for breast cancer and is supposed to clear out her apartment in Graz after the holiday. Her adult daughter is already independent. When the campsite reception runs out of beer and the weather is miserable, the three women visit Chris, the campsite’s only long-term guest, one evening. He turns out to be a conspiracy theorist who has dropped out of society, as well as a racist. As Chris accompanies them back to their caravan through the storm, he is killed by a falling branch. That night, Astrid—who had spotted a box of gold coins in Chris’s bathroom during their visit—sneaks into his caravan and steals them. She and Isabella decide to invite Elli on a trip to Venice so their holiday together will not end on a sad note. They feel no remorse, since Chris was hardly a pleasant person and does not seem to have any heirs. In Venice, the three women check into the luxurious Excelsior Hotel, and the problems begin. Back at the campsite, Elli had learned from her daughter Julia, who is in her early twenties, that Julia is pregnant. Isabella meets her lover, the married Jürgen, and Astrid has an accident in her old station wagon, which her husband Peter considers sacred. While Elli and Julia use regular video calls to weigh whether Julia should keep the baby, Astrid discreetly exchanges the gold coins for cash. When the three women go out for a drink, they run into Jürgen, who is out with his family. Isabella discovers that her lover has a son, even though he had told her that bringing children into this world would be irresponsible. The next morning, Peter calls Elli and tells her that Astrid had claimed she cashed in a building-savings contract to fund the holiday. Because of this lie, Elli wants to end the trip immediately. After Astrid and Isabella let her in on the secret of the coins, uniformed police officer Johannes, who had questioned them after Chris’s death, suddenly turns up in Venice. Johannes asks the trio to speak with Chris’s daughter, who would like to hear about her father’s final evening. The women quarrel because Elli no longer wants Astrid constantly telling her what to do. Astrid then goes to get her car, which still has not been repaired, but realizes she cannot drive it back to Graz in its current condition. At a bar, she meets Moussa, a street vendor she had met on the beach a few days earlier. He makes a makeshift repair to parts of the car’s bodywork, and they spend the evening together. As they sit in the car and Astrid finally starts to loosen up, a police officer arrives and suspects them of prostitution, which is illegal in Italy. Moussa then disappears. During a walk through Venice, Johannes confesses to Isabella that he is in love with her but is still married. His marriage, he says, is “more a matter of habit.” Isabella, however, has no interest in such adventures anymore and leaves him. Meanwhile, Elli spends a night on the beach that proves healing for her. The next day, Astrid leaves a message with her phone number at the bar Moussa frequents. Julia tells Elli that she is going to keep the baby, and the three women return to Austria. At a motorway rest stop on the way home, they decide to make their trip to Venice their new annual tradition.