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.
Romantic comedy about a series of mix-ups. Brigitte Kaufmann wants to divorce her husband Jörg who is an engineer and chief executive of an electronics company – and a hopeless pedant. Benno, a former boy friend of Brigitte, has a slightly bizarre idea how they could save their marriage. A piano player, whom Benno has seen in a bar, and who looks exactly like Jörg, is asked to work his charms on Brigitte and to try to dissuade her from divorce while Jörg is on a business trip. Piano player Engel agrees on the plan and acts as Jörg at home with Brigitte as well as in Jörg′s workplace.
Susanne is a young single mother who lives a somewhat "carefree" lifestyle. After quitting her job, she finds herself in trouble financially and attempts a minor insurance fraud to make ends meet. Despite its rare view of everyday socialism from a woman's perspective, East German officials were critical of this frank portrayal of a less-than-ideal socialist citizen and turned down all invitations for the film to be screened abroad.
