When land surveyor K arrives at a small village that houses a castle, local authorities refuse to allow him to enter. As he tries to convince the officials that they sent for him, they clamp down with increasingly complicated bureaucratic obstacles.

Senator Isaak Kohler shoots and kills Professor Winter in a crowded restaurant, while Winter is dining with the struggling idealistic young lawyer, Felix Spat. Kohler puts up no defense and is sentenced to twenty years. Kohler then gets his daughter Helene to pay the reluctant Spat to reinvestigate the case, on the assumption that Kohler is innocent. The newspapers pick up on this and begin to question whether Kohler was wrongly convicted.

Sweet, 12 year-old Stefanie, played by child model Soraya Da Mota, dreams of attacking her parents with a flail.

Ulrich Mühe plays a German businessman who was born completely without scruples. This makes him an eminently suitable candidate for success in the chaotic years after World War I. The shameless man's story is contrasted with that of his polar opposite, a Jewish anarchist.

With the help of his assistant Anja, Ottocaro Weiss intends to put the plague on stage: circumstances beyond his control and a lack of fresh talent have forced him to close down his flea circus. For Weiss, the plague means the «extinction of everything that makes life miserable and low and freedom along with it. Unbeknownst to him, he has won the support of a patron who is of the exact opposite opinion: for Johannes Wagner, the plague is an organising principle, and, aided by his agent Moosbrugger, he is able to smuggle a new number onto the programme. Whereas Ottocaro Weiss means to represent the plague theatrically, what appears on stage is the scientific reality of the rat-borne infestation.

The psychiatrist Simon embarks with his newly wed Paula on a wedding trip to Marmorera, the home of his ancestors. The body of a young woman is found on the shore of the reservoir. A little later, the same woman - alive but without an identity - was taken to the Psychiatric University Clinic Burgholzli in Zurich, where Simon works. The idea of ​​the film is based on a true story: in 1954 the entire old Marmorera was demolished and flooded to prevent protests against the planned dam above the village. Only the cemetery with the bones of the dead was moved.

Vitus tells the story of a highly-gifted boy (played by real-life piano prodigy Teo Gheorghiu) whose parents have demanding and ambitious plans for him.

Argentinian biology student Miro falls madly in love with young actress Mercedes, but is without a clue as to how to win her love. Then, a series of misunderstandings put him in the hot seat as a famous film director. Miro grabs his chance to shoot a film with Mercedes as his leading lady, hoping that she will fall for him. Whilst his plan is crazy, it is simple enough and Cupid is on his side. But Miro hasn't reckoned with film students Peter and Luigi who wish to shoot a “making-of” documentary of the great Argentinian “director”at work.

Francois Korb is an arms manufacturer who sold both to the Germans and the Allied forces. Korb's home life is less than ideal, since his wife is having an affair with his brother, and his young son is inseparable from a teddy bear. To remedy the son's situation, the parents take in a little refugee girl as a temporary companion and playmate, and the two children become fast friends.