ALMA AND OSKAR explores the passionate and tumultuous three-year relationship between the Grand Dame of Viennese society Alma Mahler (1879-1964) and the Austrian artist and enfant terrible Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). In the early 1900s, Kokoschka was an up-and-coming painter, influenced by the work of Gustav Klimt yet with his own distinctive expressionist style.
Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.
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.
In post-war Germany, liberation by the Allies does not mean freedom for everyone. Hans Hoffmann is repeatedly imprisoned under Paragraph 175, which criminalizes homosexuality. Nevertheless, over the decades, he continues his quest for freedom and love, even if he finds it in the most unusual places.
Ava is far from happy about having to move in with her mother again after finishing college. A lot has changed since she was a child. Her old room is occupied by her mother's home exercise machine, and Ava's friends have their own lives to worry about. However, her mother has found a new boyfriend who is not much older than Ava herself. Ava finds herself without any prospects for the future and doesn't quite know what to do with her life.
In cafeteria Natalia accidentally poured hot soup over Jakub, a young student. He falls in love with the girl at once, but loses her in the crowd. When he finally finds her, he realizes that words are not enough to communicate properly. Jakub finds a way to communicate with Natalia without words.
In the aftermath of WWI, a young German who grieves the death of her fiancé in France meets a mysterious French man who visits the fiance’s grave to lay flowers.