Marie Kaufmann has to face an unusual interview that decides not only her own fate.

We follow Ella from her birth to growing up. The older she gets, the more she struggles to fit in.

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.

When a single phone call is the difference between life and death: Jan May holds five hostages captive in a radio studio and plays a perfidious game of amok with them every hour. If a caller answers with the wrong slogan, a hostage is killed. Criminal psychologist Ira tries to stop the hostage-taker from killing and to meet his demands. But what nobody suspects is that Jan seems to have a personal connection to the psychologist...

An American poet living in Berlin hopes to win a prestigious grant while dealing with her former relationships, a rival poet, and her own penchant for stealing things.