Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.

The architect Daniel Brenner is in his late thirties when he receives his first challenging and lucrative commission: to design a cultural center for a satellite town in East-Berlin. He accepts the offer under the condition that he gets to choose who he works with. This way, he reunites with former colleagues and friends - most of them architects or students of architecture who have since chosen a different profession due to personal restraint or economic confinement. Together, they develop a concept which they hope will be more appealing to the public than the conventional and dull constructions common to the German Democratic Republic. However, their ambitious plans are once and again foiled by their conservative supervisors. As frustration grows, Daniel has trouble keeping his career in balance with his family-life: his wife Wanda wants to leave for West-Germany.

The paths of many people cross before Christmas Eve. Each of them has their own special story to tell on this day... On the morning of December 24, the doctor at the children's clinic leaves the hospital with a happy heart. The parents of little Matthias have reconciled with each other. As a farewell gift, the porter gives her a chocolate Santa Claus, which is to be passed on many times that day: at one or two fleeting encounters, as a nice gesture for other people. Fate plays a bit of a servant Ruprecht and distributes his gifts. Two lonely hearts are in a hurry to escape the hustle and bustle of the festive season. An accident brings them together. In exchange for a bottle of champagne to mark the shock, the sweet chocolate man switches to Ilse's divorced husband, who is drawn back into the bosom of the family at the same time every year.

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.

Last years in the Life of german Dramatican Georg Büchner. Around the year 1830 he and his fellow students try to initiate a revolution in Germany, but they are not successful. Büchner has to leave the country and seeks exile in France and Switzerland, where he falls ill with typhus.

10-year-old Kathy Montag moves to a big city in Brandenburg. Before that, she lived in the Harz Mountains together with her father Peter. Her mother has died a few years ago. The girl finds her new home very exciting, and since Kathy takes an interest in everything she encounters, she keeps finding herself in peculiar situations such as a brigade party or the shooting of a historical epic movie. Her classmates consider her an oddball and even her father is unhappy about his daughter′s development.

When David (36) learns that his friend Andreas (40) has taken his own life, the days of their once close friendship are long gone. They hardly knew each other. And yet David can't shake off his feelings of guilt over the suicide of his former best friend.

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, former Stasi agents settle scores with former East German citizens who had resisted the regime.