Eckhard Becker
Maria tells her former colleague, Hanna, that she has undergone a cancer operation but is now cured. Soon after, she suffers a relapse. The doctors believe that she should be told the truth about her condition, and Hanna is willing to do so. For Maria, it is the beginning of several long, agonizing weeks until she is ready to accept that she has only a very small amount of time left to live. In the meantime, Hanna has to decide how she can help her friend die; an almost unbearable decision, but once made she carries it out to the last consequence.
Kathe Kollwitz was 47 years old, and already a well established artist in Germany and abroad when Peter, her youngest son, volunteered to join the German army in WWI and was killed two weeks later. This painful tragedy changed Kollwitz's life and art forever.
The nurses and friends Anna and Annette grow desperate over men and love. At the hospital, Anna has fallen in love with Markus, whom she lovingly calls "moose", but they only meet twice a year, when Markus has time for her. In the meantime, she keeps afloat with flights of fancy. Meanwhile, Annette clings to the painter Ludwig who cannot stand such a close relationship. Through Annette and Ludwig, Anna meets an attractive married man but her high spirits do not last long.
Maja Wegner is in her late thirties and a single mother of a teenage daughter. To give her stale life a new direction, she decides to start all over again in the big city. She sells her house in the countryside, quits her job, and moves with her daughter to Berlin. There, she finds a job as a conductor for the railroad company. Although Maja soon finds new friends in her apartment building, the search for a new life partner does not come off so easily.
Eleven-year-old Jella lives with her mother in a rural idyll in which both feel at home and comfortable. Then, however, they move to the city where her father works. On parting, her friend Freitag presents Jella with a pair of pigeons. Although Jella is looking forward to life in the city, she is unable to accustom herself to her new surroundings. She is being picked on by the other children, and a neighbor′s son even releases her pigeons. They fly back to Freitag who returns them to Jella. When Jella visits the village one day, she is disappointed to learn that she has become a stranger there, as well. The two pigeons, however, which she has left at Freitag′s place, know by now where their new home is and fly back to the city. Jella follows them and realizes that it is only a matter of time until she herself will feel at home in the city.
In three episodes about six people, the film takes on the topics of relationships, difficult social engagements , and love in the German Democratic Republic.
In a small village in West Prussia in the 1870s, Germans, Poles, Gypsies and Jews live together as neighbors. One night Johann, a German mill-owner, secretly opens the dam gates and floods the mill of his Jewish rival Levin. After his business is ruined and his calls for justice go unanswered, Levin leaves town.
Following a training course, the 28-year-old Helga Baumann, a single mother of two children, meets up with her husband Fred again. They had separated a while ago because their ideas of marriage were completely disparate: The conservative Fred advocated the woman′s role of wife and mother, while Helga dreamt about an emancipated partnership between two employed persons. Now, her sister has brought them back together. At first sight, Fred seems to have changed and, once again, Helga cannot resist his advances. But when she meets with difficulties during a fair in Tashkent, Fred yet again proves to be a petty bourgeois by assuring her that they would get along perfectly without her working.
When 17-year-old Angelika moves to Leipzig, she is forced to rent a room at Mrs. Häublein’s for a start, since her parents will not follow until a few months later. Fellow tenant Thomas, a philosophy student, is not at all enthused about his new, pretty housemate. Because of Angelika he has to move into a smaller room. Furthermore, he is annoyed at her many male acquaintances, without sensing that his aggression might be prompted by jealousy. When Angelika’s father comes for a visit, he asks Thomas to keep an eye on his daughter. Thomas takes this assignment very seriously and finally realizes that he has fallen in love with Angelika.
Germany in 1943. The Berlin worker Klaus Hartung is deployed as a soldier to the Eastern front during World War II. During a tour, he is captured by a Russian patrol. While in captivity, Hartung comes to the conclusion that he has to come through and actively take part in the effort to end the war. He consents to abduct a German officer together with two Russian soldiers. During their adventurous mission, the men who at first had been enemies, become sincere friends.
