Sten Jacobs

An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.

The architect and head of the family Markus Larsen secretly lives out his bisexual tendencies while his wife Christine and their 11-year-old daughter Elisabeth drown in unbearable loneliness. When Markus gets to know the 12-year-old son of a colleague, he feels an immediate affection for the boy.

Martin and Albert have been in a steady but rocky relationship for 16 years, which is thrown off balance by the appearance of a mysterious stranger - with devastating consequences for everyone involved.

Stephen lives in Berlin and is unemployed. Together with his ex-girlfriend he shares custody of his son, Jasper, but while other fathers go with their children to the movies, they browse through their days, collecting old clothes or returnable bottles. Jasper loves his father and covers for him towards his mother and the child welfare office, but it is increasingly difficult for Stephen to bear his own free fall through the German social network. He knows what personal and professional mistakes he has made and as he realizes that he now runs the risk of failing as a father, he decides on a calm farewell and prepares himself for a serious act of desperation.