Master painter Hans Moll and his wife, the television announcer Ms. Wellinek and her husband, and the German-Russian Jew Yevgenia have many things to live on: food, drink, an apartment. What they do not have is work. They all discover the yearning for a chance to start all over again and bring themselves back to life.

A village has to be destroyed for coal mining. Henning, a 15 years old boy, who wants to visit his grandfather one more time, realizes that nothing will be the way it used to be.