Gisbert-Peter Terhorst

In three episodes about six people, the film takes on the topics of relationships, difficult social engagements , and love in the German Democratic Republic.

Willi Zubrodt is delegated by his department to a parachuting course at the GST. As he is not very disciplined, has no respect for the instructors and does not fit into the collective, the instructors try to show him up and force his expulsion from the course. However, the attempts to prove that he had gaps in his theory and physical condition were a complete failure. Zubrodt manages to turn the tables each time.

The two computer specialists Frank and Kamminke are not the type of citizens the party likes. Thus they are sent to the landscape where they still find enough stuff to do: They repair the software of a western type factory which is currently not working.

A commercial artist with a lisp chooses silence, unexpectedly propelling his career. His perceived innovation leads to rapid advancement in an ad agency. Mueller-Stahl shines in this biting critique of East German workplace culture.

A Saxon village in 1792: While the Prussians go against France, the haymaking takes place in the village and the resolute Marthe catches her daughter Ev with the village blacksmith Ruprecht in the hay.

On the evening of St. Nicholas Day, Theo (18) loses his temper. He can no longer suppress the mixture of fear, anger and shame that has been stirred up in his family for years. A family that moves between caring and strictness without questioning itself and its traditions. What initially happens in secret finally unfolds before the eyes of the entire family: Theo is forced into the costume of Krampus in a desperate attempt to free himself from the shackles of his oppression.

Ralph grows up in pre-war Dresden as the eldest son of a principled and orderly streetcar conductor. With the rise to power of the Nazis, the war, the collapse and the hesitant new beginning, his firmly established middle-class world is also thrown off course. His father is one of the first to be called up to the front. His mother is left alone with the responsibility for Ralph and his younger brother Achim. In the air-raid shelter, during the nights of bombing and later in the daily struggle against misery and hunger, the mother quickly abandons all moral baggage and develops a pragmatic will to survive, for which she admires Ralph. At the same time, the boy is frightened by his mother's desperate claim to happiness because he perceives her affairs as a betrayal of his father, who has gradually faded into a symbol of a happy, carefree childhood.

Oliver is in the 4th grade. He hasn't been paying attention in magic class and gets a big, fat five on a test. He has to have the work signed by his parents, but he is ashamed and doesn't want to cause his parents any grief. So he tries to get rid of the five with magic or at least turn it into a three. He manages to create talking guinea pigs and singing geese, but the five remains. The other children are already angry with him because he has no time to play with all the magic exercises. And so he decides to confess his mishap to his parents. His mother shows him how he can turn the five into a better grade - and that has to do with learning.