In Germany, an old man attacks another old man and is arrested. The attacker refuses to speak. A female lawyer is appointed to him. She discovers that the attacker has numbers tattooed on his arm and the attacked man was a German officer.

After breaking up with her unfaithful boyfriend, Katharina Reiff urgently needs a change of scenery. Together with her 16-year-old daughter Nele, she travels to her mother Marianne, who lives on a small island in the North Sea. On the way there, Katharina observes a man being followed by two dubious figures. Good-natured as she is, she takes Sebastian, the stranger's name, with her to the island. When Sebastian's shady pursuers turn up a little later, the shrewd islanders join forces to shed light on the matter.

A gently humorous look at otherness and xenophobia in modern day German with this tale of a black Berlin teen named Leroy who rediscovers his roots after falling for a pretty white girl and meeting her racist family.