Sebastian Becker

Two countries,two languages,two groups of friends. Between black humor and bitter realism the film Pencil Knife Baton composes a tragicomic puzzle about friendship in the paradox world we live in.

Bogdan, an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, retires from the stage when his wife Iza dies, and he seeks solace on his mother's little farm. The little village on the Baltic coast is where he and his wife had sworn to love each other for all eternity when they were still children. Now that everything has changed, Bogdan succumbs to fate and begins to drink heavily. Thankfully his resolute mother has a formula to free the despairing Bogdan from his state of lethargy: renovating the run-down farmhouse and hard work in the stables. One day Bogdan makes a fateful discovery. A surprisingly musical cow, of all things, rekindles Bogdan's life spirits and gives him a crazy idea. His friends and family throw their hands up in horror, and when he tops things by organizing a village feast, things run completely out of control.

Master painter Hans Moll and his wife, the television announcer Ms. Wellinek and her husband, and the German-Russian Jew Yevgenia have many things to live on: food, drink, an apartment. What they do not have is work. They all discover the yearning for a chance to start all over again and bring themselves back to life.

Tobias is living in his Indian tent for the summer after his mother rents out their home to a wealthy family from Berlin. Tobias roams his small town and the fields around, scheming to get rid of the intruders.

Richard lives apart from his wife. He is unemployed. His life is really not running smoothly right now. Rather by chance, he gets into conversation with the director of his daughter's school, who is desperately looking for teachers - which gives Richard an idea. He is a mathematician. And after all, everyone can become a teacher!

Fun-loving Miri is a genius with numbers. She puts this talent to good use in her job at the town bank in the small village of Hattenstein, where she actively helps her often overburdened boss. When a local winegrower is found dead in a wooded area, she also develops a penchant for detective work. The policeman Nils, one of her old schoolmates, believes it was a sudden heart attack. But Miri's extraordinary powers of deduction tell her that there is something fishy about the case. With the moral support of her ownerless dachshund, Frauchen, she uncovers a large-scale crime in which even the mayor of the town seems to be involved.

Nina and Paul's marriage is over, they are just waiting for an opportunity to teach it their son Tim. During a chance encounter, Nina flirts with Viktor, her son's hockey coach, and goes with him to his house. A decision with serious consequences because Nina is nearly raped, defends herself and kills Viktor in the process. Paul followed the two and witnesses the misfortune, what makes a self-defense situation implausible for others. Agitated, the two drive home without notifying the police. While the investigations begin in the background and there is hardly any other topic in the circle of acquaintances of the other hockey parents, Nina and Paul have to stick together and assort new. Through the confrontation with the events and the solidarity as a "couple of crime" they find each other again in the course of the story. But can they also live with this guilt?