Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.

"Maria am Wasser" tells a story of the search in symbolic allusions and beautiful, fairytale pictures. The search for love, past, reconciliation and forgiveness. Summer 1983 in Saxony. A tank drives with four children of the orphanage "Frohe Zukunft" through the Elbe. The excursion seems to end fatally for all children, as the tank sinks. 22 years later, organ builder Marcus Lenk returns to his home village of Neusorge and claims to be one of the children. Marcus is perplexed: no one recognizes him. Not even his father Hannes, who lives with a few sheep, nor his mother Mary, who runs the orphanage with a strict hand, believe in his identity.

A group of kids grow up on the short, wrong (east) side of the Sonnenallee in Berlin, right next to one of the few border crossings between East and West reserved for German citizens. The antics of these kids, their families, of the "West German" friends and relatives who come to visit, and of the East German border guards, all serve to illustrate the absurdity of everyday life on the Sonnenallee, and therefore throughout the former East Germany.

When in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, their troops quickly besieged Leningrad. Foreign journalists are evacuated but one of them, Kate Davies, is presumed dead and misses the plane. Alone in the city she is helped by Nina Tsvetnova a young and idealist police officer and together they will fight for their own survival and the survival of the people in the besieged Leningrad.

The film starts in the early evening of a normal day: Sophie, a 20 year old girl, is pregnant and wanders through the night to get sure about her future life. Does she want to be a mother or do an abortion? Does she love her friend or not? Who is the father of her unborn baby? Trying to figure out what to do Sophie encounters many people, and in the morning she has come to a decision. But this is not the movie's end...

The life of 15 year old Alex is turned upside down, when his parents are divorced and find new partners right away. After a fight at school, the mother takes him over to England, where Alex chaotic life continues.

Lene Thurner is standing on a train platform in Munich. She has to decide: back to Berlin where she lives, or toward the south, where at the foot of the Alps her family lives on the lonely farm “Hierankl”.

In order to save her mountain guesthouse from ruin, Sopie plans to build a glass extension with a pool as an attraction. She comes up with this saving idea when her best friend Verena visits, who brings her brother Jan with her and who draws the plans for it. However, Sophie's permanent guest for life does not agree with these plans at all: Barthl, who would like to drive away all visitors, fears for his stable rights.

Martin is the ambitious one in the family. He is poised to start on his doctorate, when he is diagnosed with testicular cancer and all his future plans begin to unravel. The removal of one testicle reduces the most immediate threat, but the cancer has already spread and Martin's doctor argues for an operation that would save him, but could also castrate him.

On a summer evening the circuit of the village policeman Krause suddenly went crazy. His doctor immediately prescribed a cure on the Baltic Sea for him. And so Krause and his sisters set off in the legendary "Dübener Ei". In the sanatorium he meets his roommate Rudi - an encounter with far-reaching consequences.