Nele Mueller-Stöfen

During their vacation in the French countryside, a wealthy German family becomes entangled with a young hotel worker harboring sinister intentions.

Ten-year-old Jack has to take care of his little brother, six-year-old Manuel, every day from the time he gets up to the time he goes to bed. When Manuel suffers an accident, their lives change forever.

How should you spend your time if your days are numbered? This is the question facing Linda, a young woman suffering from a congenital heart defect. Contrary to her doctors’ expectations she has managed to survive to celebrate her thirtieth birthday, but with an operation looming, Linda nonetheless feels a deep need to spend what might be her last weekend with her two sisters: Katharina who is older, and Clara who is younger than her. Linda must use their journey, which begins at their family’s weekend house and ends in Paris, to examine the ways in which her family has been fundamentally affected by her illness; she must also consider how much she can expect from herself and her sisters – faced as they are with the possibility of her death.

Building contractor Jochen Schuster takes out loans worth millions to finance a dubious building project and fulfill the extravagant wishes of his lover. When his mountain of debt is so high that no bank will grant him a loan, he comes up with an idea: he scrapes together the last of his funds and drives up to the banks in a borrowed limousine and wig and tries to borrow money under a false identity. The banks fall for the trick and grant him the loans to "protect German cultural assets". Schuster can hardly believe his luck and handles the unexpected windfall just as irresponsibly as before...

Three siblings have all reached a point of their life, at which they realize the need to quickly change some things before they step into the second half of their lifetime. In the midst of chaos, insufficiency and loss they are searching for the path that just might lead them to happiness.

Edward Kaminsky, an aging ad man, wants a golden parachute from his agency; he must first land the Opel auto contract. Rosa, a youth with wealthy parents, wants to establish herself as an artist. The clumsy and enthusiastic Viktor, not quite honest, wants work. When he wanders into Kaminsky's meeting with Opel and says something about irony, the Opel director wants him in on the campaign. Then he steals an idea from Rosa that the Opel director loves. Before Rosa discovers he's expropriated her idea, Rosa and Viktor become lovers. Father-son feelings materialize between Kaminsky and Viktor. Can the impulsive Viktor hold it together before Rosa learns the truth and flies away?

19-year-old Karla wants to make the world a better place in a Cape Town township - much to the annoyance of her father Claas Lohmann, who worked as a manager for a Berlin-based energy company in Africa. In the Cape, Karla falls in love with the activist Maduna. While her mother Judith visits Karla, a tanker truck accident threatens to poison a drinking water lake. Karla receives a water sample from Maduna and is kidnapped shortly after...