From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.

In Munich, the Armenian Areg dreams of studying cinema with his German girlfriend Lilly. Until her widowed mother fell seriously ill with diabetes. Areg and her little brother Garnik have to take care of her.

Alex is constantly in trouble with his father, who thinks he's a loser. When his father becomes violent again, Alex goes crazy and crashes his car into the counter of the bank where his father works. A short time later, Alex is arrested. In order to be back with his mother and little sister Lena as quickly as possible, he accepts an unusual offer: 120 days in camp instead of four years in prison - without realizing how hard his time there would be...

Marko Stemper, 19 years old, comes from a disadvantaged background and works as a window cleaner. His father, an alcoholic, tyrannizes the whole family, so Marko's only joy in life is boxing. As he is the most promising talent in his club, Gerd Hermsbach, a local demimonde boss, offers him the opportunity to become a professional. Marko accepts, but has to pay a high price...

The perfect world of a small family breaks, when Can discover that his mother works in a brothel. In a maelstrom of anger, guilt and despair Mother and son are forced to forgive himself.

The film depicts the breakdown of a family that lost all its money to one of the Islamic investment companies that are very common in Europe. Metin invested all his money in one such company, JIMPA, and even convinced his close friends and family to do the same. This company, JIMPA, which had made grand promises, goes bankrupt after collecting the money, and its managers disappear. Many people who invested their money demand accountability from Metin. Like hundreds of thousands of other families who believed in such Islamic investment companies and invested their money, Metin's family has also lost all their savings in an instant. The journey Metin embarked on to resolve the situation would confront him with realities he never anticipated. Metin’s father-in-law, the Imam, warned him. In fact, the Imam seemed to know more than he was letting on.

Can and his girlfriend, Jale, live with their young daughter, Meral, in a tough Turkish neighbourhood of Berlin and barely manage to scrape enough money together for their existence. Can is a small-time dealer and errand-boy for drug boss Hakan, who has to keep his customers supplied within his narrowly staked out territory. Jale, who works in the ware-house of a department store, has been pressing Can to give up this activity. Can, also fed up with his situation, sees a bright new beginning for himself and his family when Hakan offers him the prospective chance to run a bar on his very own. But Can has little control over the pressures that gradually begin to build up around him and soon finds himself floundering in quicksand.

A client enjoys an shave.