Eleven-year-old Linh shows great grace under pressure. When her mother, who’s raising her kids on her own, has to return unexpectedly to Vietnam, Linh looks after her little sister Tien and the family restaurant on her own. Of course, no one is supposed to find out, not the school, not the neighbours, and definitely not child protective services. But Linh’s biggest problem has red hair, a telescope and a sly grin: Pauline. The daredevil from across the street has the whole neighbourhood under surveillance and can’t imagine anything cooler than a life without parents. When Pauline blackmails the Vietnamese sisters into starting a gang with her, the three girls set off on a daring adventure.

Grim, recently retired 'iron judge' Ernst Blessing lives alone with his dog since his only daughter left angrily 18 years ago. Suddenly he's informed she died in a car crash, which landed her husband, Turkish Kurd Baran Amedi, in hospital. Loner Ernst is now required to mind his grandchildren, which he didn't even know having, resourceful rebel Dilo and his brat sister Hewi. Both sides' prejudices and principles are tested in practice. When Dilo finally respects Ernst and wins his heart, Baran arranges for the kids' 'repatriation' with a backward uncle.

During their childhood, Hanna and Clarissa were best friends. They spent every vacation together in an old summer house on a small island. Shortly after Hanna’s 9th birthday, they suddenly lost touch and only meet again unexpectedly 25 years later. Hanna is now married, has a seven-year-old daughter and is the chief resident physician at the hospital where she reunites with Clarissa. Her old friend has been brought to the hospital ER for overdosing on sleeping pills. The two women pick up their friendship where they left off and spontaneously decide to spend a few days on the island, just like in the old days. When Hanna learns that Maria, a playmate of hers from the island’s village, disappeared as a child and was never seen or heard from again, she begins to search in the past. Something horrible must have happened on the island and they must have been involved.

Elli and Robert have been divorced for three years. But for the festive season, they pretend to be a happy couple for their children, while the crisis-ridden offspring pretend to be in harmony with their parents. This year, the tree will burn: Robert's new lover and Elli's lover are not invited, but come anyway...

Conny Stein from the ordnance disposal service in Dresden has to defuse a bomb on his last day of work before retirement, on a construction site in a power plant. In the process, he discovers a girl who had previously come to the city in a minibus full of refugees and does not speak a word.

A girl struggling with asthma is taken to a clinic in South Tyrol to be cured. After some time she decides to get out of this hell (that's how she feels about it) and soon she'll meet a new friend. Together they try to reach the peak of a mountain where, according to an old custom, she can be healed.

It is a Saturday in autumn, and Karin and Simon are visiting their parents and youngest sister Clara. This family gathering provides the occasion for a dinner together, at which other relatives appear over the course of the day. While the family members animate the apartment’s space with their conversations, everyday activities and cooking preparations, the cat and dog range through the various rooms. they too become a central element in this quotidian familial dance that repeatedly manifests stylized elements, disrupting any naturalistic mode of presentation. In this way, adjoining spaces open up between family drama, fairy tale and the psychological study of a mother.