Elisabeth Rath

Chronicles three years of a middle-class family seemingly caught up in their daily routines, troubled only by minor incidents. Behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, however, they're planning something much more sinister.

Rodolpho Aranda, head of an Argentinian chemical company, is found murdered in a Berlin bookshop: An elderly librarian named Valerie Steinfeld poisoned him with cyanide and then took her own life. As the LKA was unable to establish any connection between the victim and the perpetrator, the motive for the crime remains unclear. When Aranda's son Manuel arrives to transfer his father's body to Argentina, the case is officially closed. Instead of an explanation, the young doctor only receives a sealed zinc coffin - the search for the truth is left to him.

When the ambitious Philip takes over the running of the family business from his father, he finds himself confronted by the mysterious reappearance of his dead ancestors. In the course of a long night, during which there is a murder, an illicit love affair and a game with false identities, Philip uncovers a closely guarded family secret.

Horst Valfelt, deputy manager of a medium-sized bank branch in West Berlin, is passed over for promotion. A woman is put in front of him as branch manager. A serious blow to Valfelt's career. One day, his former fellow student Thomas Berthold appears at the bank. He has achieved everything Valfelt dreams of: a degree, a highly remunerated and influential position and an attractive wife. Berthold wants to start his own business and asks for a loan. Valfelt cockily promises to get him a loan on particularly favorable terms.

Sibylle, a pragmatic architect, mother and wife, witnesses a suicide of a woman her age while on vacation in Italy. Devastated by this incident, it causes the perception of her life and her family to change. Something inside of her has been set in motion that seems to endanger everything which she has defined herself by...