Jean receives in payment for seven years of work with a master craftsman a gold nugget. He then exchanges this nugget for a horse, then the horse for a cow, the cow for a pig, the pig for a goose, the goose for a sharpening stone. Finally, he loses the stone by dropping it in a well. After losing the sharpening stone, he is relieved because it weighed heavy, and continues his happy journey to his mother's house. On his way home, he keeps running into Knudsen the Merchant and his beautiful daughter Elisabeth.

Felix from Hamburg comes into possession of a run-down gas station in the middle of the north German provinces through a dubious barter. But that's not all: right across the street, the young Weda also runs a petrol pump business and is of course not very enthusiastic about the annoying competition. Only when an oil company stretches out its greedy fingers for the two gas stations do the quarreling operators also get closer personally...

Taking pot shots with an air rifle at a snail on the railway tracks isn’t really very funny. Dennis does laugh though, just the once. Being a teenager in a small town in Brandenburg isn’t easy. Somehow he’s always so serious and wound up, like a tight coil. His only friend is his big brother. When his older sibling is injured by another boy, Dennis is bent on revenge. It’s too bad that his opponent is a wrestling champ.

Paulinus is a young novice at a small Austrian monastery in 1929. In a few days he will take his final vows and become a full member of the order. His only contact to the outside world is Jakob, a young farmer, who visits the monastery every day to deliver errands. When Paulinus' feelings for Jakob start to grow beyond their friendship, he finds himself at a crossroads between God and the world. Before he can make his life's most important decision, he needs to uncover where he belongs in life.