When the clown cries
There are stories you don’t make up. The story of Barbara Pachl-Eberhart is one of them. On an ordinary day, she loses everything that makes up her life: Her husband Heli and her two children Fini and Thimo. A level crossing, a yellow clown bus and then silence reigns where before there was laughter.
The fact that this story could be turned into a film that does not freeze in gestures of consternation, but remains honest and lively, is thanks to a long, careful collaboration. Director Adrian Goiginger, screenwriter Senad Halilbašić and Barbara Pachl-Eberhart herself worked for years to not simply retell her story, but to translate it into film. The result can be seen in cinemas from April 16.
The attitude of the clown
Anyone who only knows clowns as fairground characters will find something different here. Clowning, as Barbara and Heli live it, is a philosophy: you don’t hide your weaknesses, you make something out of them. You look at things from the other side. It is precisely this attitude that is put to the toughest test after the accident. Barbara worked as a hospital clown for years, bringing color to the gray corridors of sick children’s wards. Now she sits in the waiting room herself, waiting for news she doesn’t want to hear.
Valerie Pachner plays this woman without any sentimentality. Her Barbara cries, breaks down, gets up again, laughs, falls silent. Pachner and Goiginger show grief not as a fixed state, but as something that is constantly changing, that mixes with everyday life and memory and the occasional laugh.
Tell an honest story, don’t embellish
Goiginger, known for DIE BESTE ALLER WELTEN and the Silver Lola-winning DER FUCHS, has so far mostly worked his way through his own biographies. VIER MINUS DREI was a different step: the personal story of another person. That meant a special responsibility. Barbara Pachl-Eberhart was therefore involved in all phases, from the script to casting to set visits. Not controlling, but accompanying.
Screenwriter Halilbašić, most recently known for the third season of “The Pass”, sat with Pachl-Eberhart for hours and asked questions that went far beyond the facts. What she felt. How she remembers. Why she made certain decisions. Most of the scenes in the movie are true. All of them are true.
The narrative structure oscillates between life before the accident and the difficult aftermath. This non-linearity is not a formal gimmick, it is necessary: You have to have seen the happiness in order to understand the loss.
An ensemble with weight
Robert Stadlober plays Heli, and the choice is an obvious one. Stadlober brings a real comedic streak and a fragile warmth to the character that makes the later loss all the more palpable. Stefanie Reinsperger as Barbara’s best friend Sabine is the one who has to pick Barbara up, a thankless but central role. Hanno Koffler as the actor Friedrich brings a cautious affection into play, and Ronald Zehrfeld plays the doctor who gives Barbara the worst news of her life.
Laughing and crying at the same time
Probably the strongest scene in the movie is the funeral. Clown friends sing a song in the church that Heli and the children loved, dance on stilts and let balloons fly while the coffins are carried out. During a test screening, Goiginger heard women laughing and crying behind him at the same time. That, he says, was exactly what he had hoped for.
It is the core of the movie: grief and joie de vivre are not mutually exclusive. The clown philosophy that Barbara has practiced all her life cannot simply be discarded because life tests her. She must now apply what she has always said makes her tick.
A film of the Berlinale 2026
VIER MINUS DREI had its world premiere in the Panorama section of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival and is based on the SPIEGEL bestseller of the same name by Barbara Pachl-Eberhart. The film was produced by 2010 Entertainment and Giganten Film, with strong support from Austrian and German funding partners. Filming took place in fall 2024, mostly in Styria, in Graz and the surrounding area.
When you leave the movie theater, you take something with you. Perhaps no answers. But the certainty that life, as difficult as it sometimes feels, always has another side.
About the author
Kinga Bartczak advises, coaches and writes on female empowerment, new work culture, organizational development, systemic coaching and personal branding. She is also the managing director of UnternehmerRebellen GmbH and publisher of the FemalExperts magazine .
