Using unpublished and newly digitalised archive footage and film material, Bettina Böhler has brilliantly assembled this film about the life and work of the exceptional artist Christoph Schlingensief, who died in 2010.
Author Steffen Teuffel moved from Berlin to sleepy, 'dying' Brandenburg (ex-GDR) small-town Krummenwalde with his wife Beate, who runs the local beverage firm, and their kids: smart son Kai opted out of college and happily works in the only pub; his shallow sister Lisa lets a classmate obsess over losing her virginity to farm boys; kid sister Sophie attracts kids' attention by waving a gold coin she found diving into the town lake, until Lutheran vicar Juchem, who needs to pay for a new church roof, snaps it up and enlists Steffen's research skills plus knowledge of French to help him and bossy mayor Gerd Jänicke, who wants to revitalize the town, research the local archives concerning a legend about a Napoleonic regimental treasure being lost in that very lake the golden Napoléon came from and split it three ways.
After his mother's death, 17-year-old Sven moves in with his dad Achim, a taxi driver, who had divorced his mother several years earlier. It is not easy for Achim to get used to an adolescent around the house, especially since Sven hardly speaks to him. But Sven does well in school, and Achim hopes that time will bring them closer together. It is Achim's girlfriend Julia who first senses that something is wrong with Sven. Why, she wonders, does he always hang around with young boys? Why does not he have any friends his own age? She suspects that he is gay. The truth, however, is somewhat more nuanced - and chilling: Sven has pedophile tendencies. Proof is soon found on videos that shock and sicken Achim. Sven himself is shattered and regrets his actions. Julia suggests therapy, but Achim is convinced that he and Sven can handle this together. But he is wrong. Though Sven practically begs his father to lock him up in his room, Achim has confidence in his son.
10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at the "Perfect Sight" campsite, located on the Island of Rügen on the German Baltic Sea coast: the former state property has been taken over by an ex-officer of the German army. Now the new moved in West German rules the site. Anyone who opposes him is banned. With a little imagination and a few tricks, he wanted to make the deal of a lifetime. But he has miscalculated and run the property into the ground, bankruptcy is imminent. His employee, the Vietnamese German Pit Sun, somehow keeps the place together and has a child with the owner's daughter. But since he hasn't received any money for a long time, he wants to run away to Vietnam. The tradition-conscious East German campers are also not happy with the bad-tempered campsite operator. It's just as well that Claus Oehlke has robbed a bank and is only throwing the money around to impress his wife. But she only has eyes for the former GDR crooner Michi Fanselow, the dream of her youth.
Horst Adamski takes a job as a department store detective and promptly falls in love with busy shoplifter Lili. His special approaches, however, rather intimidate Lili and call her unscrupulous boyfriend Wolf into action. To make the chaos perfect, the co-worker Erika also falls in love with Adamski...
In East Berlin in the late 70s, two boys meet one evening in a disco: Thomas, who is from a working class family and is doing an apprenticeship, and Michael, a 16-year-old school pupil from an educated middle-class family. They both miss the tram home and walk together instead, ending up at Michael’s house where they discuss God and the world into the early hours. Following this encounter the two boys enter into an unusual friendship, united by their mutual desire to get away from the phoniness, the limitations and the restrictions of their parents and of society.