Frau Irene Besser

In a small North German village a drama played out during and shortly after the Second World War about duty versus individual conscience and morality.

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

Set in a warm summer in 1990 in former East Germany, it follows a young woman who begins a relationship with a charismatic farmer who is twice her age.

Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

Martin Behrens is a Middle East expert for the German intelligence agency BND. He obtains information leading to a U.S. drone strike on a wanted terrorist in Zahiristan. A few days later, there's a terrorist attack on a restaurant – the video claiming responsibility calls it payback for the drone strike. Freelance journalist Aurice, with whom Martin was having an affair, is among the victims – she was investigating corruption at the heart of the BND. Martin soon has to realize that in a world where big corporations profit from arms deals as well as from homeland security contracts, good and evil are sometimes hard to tell apart.

Middle-aged widow Beatrice Hunsdorfer and her daughters Ruth and Matilda are struggling to survive in a society they barely understand. Beatrice dreams of opening an elegant tea room but does not have the wherewithal to achieve her lofty goal. Epileptic Ruth is a rebellious adolescent, while shy but highly intelligent and idealistic Matilda seeks solace in her pets and school projects, including one designed to show how small amounts of radium affect marigolds.

A jazz musician seeks refuge from a lynch mob on a remote island, where he meets a hostile game warden and the young object of his attentions.

Painting is an unacceptable vocation for a woman in provincial Germany in the year 1900, but budding artist Paula Becker is determined to make her own rules.