Switzerland, 1955. The young orphan Max is sent as a foster child and contracted to work for the Bösiger family who lives on a farm. His foster parents treat him like a workhorse while their son seizes every opportunity to humiliate him. Playing the accordion is the one thing that is entirely his. But when the new teacher stands up for Max, it only makes a bad situation much worse. The only thing preserving his will to survive is his friendship with Berteli, who was also taken on to work at the farm. Max dreams of Argentina with her: a fantasy world, where allegedly even hayforks are made of silver.

A better life is to begin for street child Anna in the mountain wasteland of all places. Where psychiatry and youth welfare services fail, only the experience of one's own limits can help, according to the mission of the unconventional educator Geena. On her mountain farm, she wants to reawaken a feeling for the existentially important things in life in her protégé through clear rules and daily work on the mountain pasture. But the unruly and disturbed girl has little faith in herself and the suffering she has experienced has left deep wounds in her childish soul...

In 2016 the sun has turned the entire world into a scorched and barren wasteland. The humans who have survived are either resourceful or violent, and sometimes both. Marie, her little sister Leonie, and best friend Phillip, are in a car headed to the mountains - rumor has it there is water there. Along the way they meet Tom, a first-rate mechanic. But can they trust him? Fraught with deep distrust, the group is lured into an ambush where their real battle for survival begins.

Maravan, aged 24, is a Tamil asylum seeker in Switzerland, working as casual help in a highly rated, gourmet restaurant in Zurich. It is also well below his own standards, because he is a gifted and highly passionate cook. In Sri Lanka his grandmother initiated him in the culinary arts, not least in the secrets of aphrodisiacal cuisine. When Maravan loses his job his colleague Andrea persuades him into a deal of the special kind: a joint catering venture for love menus.

A pensioner with many phobias realises one day that four million francs have been mistakenly deposited into his account. Instead of notifying the bank, he makes an unexpected decision: he withdraws the money and flees on his moped.

Rudi Schlosser and his ex Anna travel to Marrakech (Morocco) for their daughter Tina's wedding. Only there they learn the groom isn't a German engineer on the durable building site she knew but the local project leader Karim Mernissi. As an orphan, he was raised by uncle Rafiq Mernissi, a mundane literature professor, who still insists on a traditional Berber wedding, to console the family his bride is a European infidel. Anna abandons her opposition to tradition as she falls in love with Rafiq while making up with Rudi, but also stumbles unto a Mernissi family secret that shocks even Karim.

Silver Forest is a brutally realistic coming-of-age story, set in a small Swiss town in a bleak winter landscape. A group of boys struggle with their mounting anger with the mundane world, resulting in a string of escalating acts of violence. Deep in the forest they finally find a release for their aggression by joining a Nazi gang - only to discover the boundaries where harmless play turns into murder.