A German woman travels to San Francisco to find her mother, but winds up distracted by the sexually flamboyant culture of the city.

In modern-day Berlin (1987), Frau Kutowski goes insane, believing herself to be the (real-life) notorious Anita Berber, a nude art dancer/drug addict/scandalous figure of post-WWI Berlin. (Berber died of tuberculosis in 1928, having achieved significant success and recognition throughout the dance world.) Frau Kutowski is placed in a mental hospital, where in her own mind she acts out Berber's final days, including in her fantasies the hospital's staff and patients, to represent Anita's friends and associates.

Nurses on the night shift roll dice to see which AIDS patient will die next. The owner of a gay bathhouse gets Kaposi's Sarcoma but tries to keep his mind on profits. An epidemic victim is harassed by a reporter on his death bed - he sticks her with a contaminated syringe. The government opens a quarantine called Hell Gay Land. Gay terrorists kidnap the Minister of Health...