Director: Hans Steinbichler
Spanning nearly a century in a single Austrian valley, "A Whole Life" traces one man's quiet, hard-won existence against the arrival of electricity, railroads, and modern noise.
What is A Whole Life about?
Arriving in a remote Alpine valley as a small boy of uncertain age, Andreas grows up under the care of strangers and becomes a capable, dependable farmhand. As a young man he joins a crew building one of the region's first mountain railroads, watching the valley transform as light, machinery, and unfamiliar sounds displace the old rhythms of rural life. He finds lasting love with Marie, though their years together prove far shorter than either could have hoped. Decades later, nearing the end of his own path, Andreas looks back across the full sweep of his life, and Marie's presence returns to him once more, closing a story built from labor, loss, and quiet endurance rather than dramatic incident.
Cast & crew
Stefan Górski leads the ensemble as Andreas, with August Zirner, Andreas Lust, and Julia Franz Richter in key supporting roles. Robert Stadlober, Thomas Schubert, Lukas Walcher, and Marianne Sägebrecht round out the cast across the film's decades-spanning timeline.
Context & significance
Directed by Hans Steinbichler, this Austrian-German-Italian co-production runs 116 minutes and holds a strong 7.0 IMDb rating. Its unhurried, generational structure places it alongside other European dramas that track a single ordinary life across sweeping historical change, using the arrival of infrastructure like railroads and electricity as a marker of time passing rather than a plot engine.
Where & how to watch
"A Whole Life" is available on K-Time with a Persian dub, making its slow-building emotional arc accessible to Farsi-speaking audiences. Playback opens after a free account login, and the platform's Farsi-first interface is built for Iranian diaspora viewers seeking measured, character-driven European cinema.