Peter Begert

A year on an Alpine farm: an older couple have two children, Belli, who wanted to be a teacher, and the younger Franzi, deaf, and although he works like a man, child-like. Belli teaches him. In his work, he can become frustrated, so when he throws an expensive mower over a cliff in a fit of pique, his father banishes him to the outskirts of the farm, where he uses pubescent energy to break rocks and build walls and cairns. (It's the tradition of the father's family, called "The Irascibles" by neighbors, to spend puberty doing this.) Belli visits him and they begin sleeping together. By winter, the boy is back in the house and Belli is pregnant. Soon her parents must know.

The allotment gardens on the outskirts of the city of Zurich provide hundreds of unpropertied men and women with a home which they are unable to find in the impersonal rented blocks in which they live. The gardens represent their hobby, their freedom and their living space, which exists side by side with hard work. They cannot however own these "homes" and the film shows the chronicle of the events which took place in 1976 - 77 when construction of the Zurich wholesale market hall destroyed 150 gardens and made many people "homeless". This portrait of a group is complemented by the stories of three individuals.

Paul is married, a successful engineer, and a conservative candidate in an upcoming local election. He falls in love with Adriana, a café waitress from Italy. Paul's party is very critical of foreign labour and wants to keep Switzerland to the Swiss. Where Paul falls deeper and deeper into the relationship and is ready to leave his wife, Adriana feels the social pressure growing and has to make her own decision.

As he sets off for the countryside outside Geneva a taxi-driver hears a gunshot and notices a shadowy figure slipping away from the scene. So begins a series of strange incidents.