Caged Birds

A chain reaction in the European power grid plunges the continent into darkness. Hacker Pierre Manzano realizes that a code he wrote is to blame. In Germany Frauke Michelsen heads the country’s crisis response team. Disaster looms.

Stories of the Berlin city life, separated into five episodes. A hopeless impostor. An East German couple who dreams of the big money. Three Turkish teenagers who do everything to have sex. Two hapless Satanists. And gay boys who dream of a better world.

A Neukölln clan boss becomes a climate activist. A gender doll inventor who fulfills her most secret wishes with a fake gun and a new girlfriend in Grunewald. A balcony beekeeper whose bee colony is on speed. And in the middle of it all, a fisherman who wants to conjure up sustainable snacks from invasive swamp crabs. What unites them all? A hot summer in the capital - and waiting for the rain!

Alex and his girlfriend Anna have a problem: Anna couldn't be more pregnant, and neither can find an affordable flat. The only one who can help is Anna's father, Commander Reiker, a sweet but screwy military man who owns an empty house. Reiker, however, to whom the Swiss Army means everything, has problems of his own: how can Switzerland, nation of fabled warriors that even exports its troops to protect the Pope, maintain its fear-inspiring reputation with all the cost-cutting measures? The Army is being forced to save, to restructure, and to take itself seriously. To prevent his ramshackle troops from being axed, Reiker urgently needs help. And just about anyone will do. Like his future son-in-law Alex, the least capable man one could imagine. As a yoga teacher, house-husband and pacifist, Alex has what it takes to be discharged, not put in charge. The pact he concludes with Reiker will not only shake up the Swiss Army, but also Alex's relationship with Anna...

Two young people in their twenties, Lilian and André, decide to escape the dreary holiday season and go to the paradise that is supposed to be Spain. During their aimless journey, the couple naively places their trust in a shady guy named Sylvester. Although he is a little older than the two lovers, Sylvester also tries to give some semblance of meaning to his life by becoming acquainted with the hackneyed myths of our mediatized world: road movies, war games, romantic stories, drift into drugs. By agreeing to play roles based on clichés, the trio are gradually mired in a dangerous conflict over trust and confidence, love and life.

Wolfi is in his mid-40s and wants to revisit the good old days with his three best buddies in the Provence, where life is good. Little does he realize that his old chums are in the middle of growing up for real, bringing their wives and kids and all their everyday family problems too.

A young family in Berlin decides to go on an outing into the woods outside of town. Once in the countryside, the little daughter gets an unsettling feeling. Soon, this turns out as a dark foreboding. As the quiet afternoon progresses, for the young family, it will never be the way it was.

A madcap comedy with an episodic character by Oliver Rihs about the desperate search for love online. Shy Lanzelot simply can't manage to meet women. His lonely life takes a radical turn when his flatmate Milan sets up an internet dating profile for him and actively maintains it. Lanzelot is suddenly inundated with dates, but his encounters with the fairer sex are disastrous - he meets a panopticon of neurotic city singles and, in his search for love, is used for questionable sex fantasies, imprisoned, exposed, confused, betrayed... will Lanzelot ever manage to conquer a heart as well as his body and soul?