Otto Scheidel (Manfred Krug) has been captain of the Elbe steamer Jenissei for over twenty years, but his ship, the last of its kind, is going to be converted into a floating restaurant. Otto, whose his strong attachment to the ship has already cost him his relationship with his girlfriend Caramba...
19-year old Benjamin, called Ben, works as a cashier on the fairground und is impressing girls with his youthful self-confidence. After an argument with his uncle, who had caught the boy with a 16-year old girl, Ben leaves his familiar surroundings und ventures into the world beyond the fairground....
Scenes from an East German marriage. A young couple, Sonya and Jens, are very much in love; they get married and have a child. When Sonya wants to go back to work after her maternity leave, they clash for the first time; Jens insists that she remain a full-time wife and mother. Until Death Do Us...
A morality tale from the time of the Saxon Kingdom. The von Siebenthal volunteer fire department has nothing to do. When their local pub is in a very dilapidated state, but the landlord has no money to renovate it, the fire department tries to help out by setting fire to it themselves, but it...
Journalist Elias investigates the background to a suicide in a village in East Westphalia. Günther Sperl, son of the local butcher, has taken his own life after years of humiliation and despair. His oversensitive talent was not appreciated in the stuffy provincial atmosphere. Elias, who shares his...
Journalist Dieter Lindemann believes he has found the perfect solution for everyday family and work life with his wife Esther and their two five-year-old twins and three-year-old daughter with the principle of a "50:50 split" of job, housework and childcare. Unfortunately, Dieter realizes too late...
Aged hairdresser Hans Anton Schatz still lives at home with his mother and works in the small-town salon around the corner. He adores the florist Melanie, but she is engaged to a wild Ruhr proletarian. Shortly before the wedding, she is overcome with panic and persuades Hans Anton to take a bus...
Germany in May 1945: the war is over, men are returning home and a new life begins in the villages. After 12 years in a concentration camp, the "Red Shoemaker" also returns to his home village. His wife is dead and others live in his house: Gebhardt, an employee on the farm of the large farmer...
In 1989, teacher Wendler and his wife leave the GDR to join his Bavarian uncle. In the West, the line-loyal educator with a whitewashed CV is immediately accepted back into the teaching profession. He advances to become a model Bavarian. Until one day a pupil from bygone GDR days turns up...
Josef Bertholt is head of operations of the Munich Police's drug squad. When his wife Lily is the victim of a hit by drug dealers, he becomes even more obsessed with his work.
Roger has his own clear world. He loves his apartment. Roger works as a janitor in a house about to be demolished. Leftover GDR supporters, failed geniuses, artistic neo-Nazis live there.
Berlin, end of the 1920s. Young factory workers Hete and Paul are expecting a child. When first Paul and then Hete become unemployed, the two look for ways to terminate the pregnancy. Hete goes to a doctor, but he refuses to give her the necessary document for the abortion. As a result, Hete and...
The 16-year-old Umberto, who lives in an East German small town with his mother and his little half-sister Bianca, dreams of Pa-isch, the country to which Bianca's Angolan father returned long ago. Pa-isch, a verballhorn of the Portuguese word for country, is far enough to no longer have to see the...