Jimsher Berdzenishvili

War in Abkhazia, 1992. An Estonian man Ivo has stayed behind to harvest his crops of tangerines. In a bloody conflict at his door, a wounded man is left behind, and Ivo is forced to take him in.

A 50-year-old housewife, Manana, struggles with her dilemma - she has to choose between her family life and her passion, writing, which she had repressed for years - she decides to follow her passion and plunges herself into writing, sacrificing to it mentally and physically.

hree stories happening in three different centuries, revolve around a mysterious painting entitled "Two Owls". In the 19th century thread, a man living in a big mansion is worried about his brother whose wife died a while ago. The brother however behaves as if she was still alive. A befriended psychiatrist is being called for help in order to examine the phenomenon in long conversations. He has to recognize however that the man's behavior doesn't harm anyone. He actually offers a painting to the doctor which his wife allegedly just finished: it's called "Two Owls". The painting reappears in the midst of World War II. A woman finds it in the apartment of her husband's lover. The general of the Red Army was just found dead there. He died in the arms of his concubine. Torn between ambiguous feelings of grief and anger the widow has to make a decision. She also needs to retain her composure as the military police is already waiting outside. The last story happens in present time.

Winter which was not there’ can be seen as a metaphor for the liberation of an individual from his or her own history. In the film, a man watches a monumental concrete sculpture of a man being hoisted out of the sea. The sculpture is clearly reminiscent of a classic heroic monument but in a strange, and somewhat uncanny way, the face and figure of the sculpture look amazingly like the man who’s watching it rise out of the sea.