Clara is studying for a Ph.D in philosophy in Berlin. In this middle-class male academic environment, she feels pushed to one side. She returns to her childhood village in former East Germany for her mother's birthday, and becomes aware that a distance has grown between her and her family.

Vienna, Austria, 1912. The brilliant painter Oskar Kokoschka, considered one of the main representatives of the expressionist movement, has a tumultuous relationship, both professional and romantic, with the composer Alma Mahler.

As young musicians Jean and Helena brace for parenthood amidst job insecurities, their lives collide with landlord Klara's enigmatic breakdown. Accepting her offer of rent-free living, they embark on a surreal journey, encountering societal judgments and forming unexpected connections that shape their intertwined destinies.

In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.

Ava is far from happy about having to move in with her mother again after finishing college. A lot has changed since she was a child. Her old room is occupied by her mother's home exercise machine, and Ava's friends have their own lives to worry about. However, her mother has found a new boyfriend who is not much older than Ava herself. Ava finds herself without any prospects for the future and doesn't quite know what to do with her life.

On a Berlin construction site, the former editor-in-chief Karin and her journalist Rommy happens to witness a fatal accident. From Taras, the accident victim's brother, they learn that this is not an isolated coincidence: The Eastern European workers who toil on the construction site for cheap wages have to do their day's work under the most precarious conditions and beyond give a large part of their wages to shady "intermediaries".

In cafeteria Natalia accidentally poured hot soup over Jakub, a young student. He falls in love with the girl at once, but loses her in the crowd. When he finally finds her, he realizes that words are not enough to communicate properly. Jakub finds a way to communicate with Natalia without words.

Bernd and Daniela Weigel not only make a good deal with the sale of a building plot, but also make the acquaintance of the happy buyers. The couple Viktor and Svetlana Galkin want to finally build a house for their whole family on the newly acquired 1000 square meters in a prime location. The Weigels' and Galkins' high-proof drink is soon followed by a rude awakening: a bomb could go off on the building site at any time.

Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.