Michael Danisch

The subject of this historical drama is a splintering Berlin in the years of 1948 and 1949. Played against the backdrop of social upheaval, the characters in the drama come to epitomize the best and worst of each pole of the political sphere. A 17-year-old hoodlum by the name of Gladow works hand-in-glove with a local white-collar criminal to rob and pillage every day and night, defying capture. While he and his gang of thugs are terrorizing the people of Berlin, the Soviets are trying to make the blockade of their region of control impermeable. The future casts long shadows over the drama, as Berlin's problems take the shape of times to come.

Alexandra is spending the weekend at her parents' house. As she arrives at the familiar apartment, nobody's home. Yet successively, the mother, a friend of the family and the father get in. The rooms, which were quite in the beginning, slowly fill up with noises, conversations and activity. Alexandra withdraws from the social world of the family structure repeatedly. Finally, the mother, the father and the friend go to the movies together. Alexandra is left behind by herself.

In the mid-1870s, landowner Varvara Stavrogina and Professor Stepan Verkhovensky are the center of society. Stavrogina's son Nikolai and Verkhovensky's son Pyotr are staying in Geneva. There, Nikolai becomes engaged to the lovely Lisa Tushina. However, he is already to be married to another.