Сюжет фильма основан на реальной истории о группе юных хакеров из Германии. В конце 1980-х Карл Кох, оставшись сиротой, тратит свое наследство на квартиру и домашний компьютер. Сначала он подключается к чату, где обсуждают теорию заговоров, основанную на его любимом романе Р. А. Уилсона «Иллюминаты», но вскоре он и его друг Дэвид начинают взламывать правительственные и военные компьютеры. Пепе, знакомый Карла из уголовного мира, чувствует, что на этом можно зарабатывать деньги, — он едет в Восточный Берлин и пытается связаться с КГБ.
Winter 1968. Historian Dr. Dallow is released from prison. He is still trying to cope with and understand why he was put behind bars for 21 months for defamation of the state. His supposed "crime:" for five minutes he accompanied a cabaret chanson on the piano. The film shows what "ordinary socialism" was like, letting the audience feel the threat under which the people in the GDR had to live over many years.
A small town shortly before the end of the GDR: 15-year-old Ulla lives with her mother in a dilapidated old building where not even the electricity works properly. Economy of scarcity and national bankruptcy are visible everywhere. Only higher party comrades live in the lap of luxury. When Ulla meets Winfried after a summer bathing trip, the two fall in love. Winfried is the son of an influential general director and owns things from West Germany that others only dream of: a computer, a games console, a walkman. On an excursion with her biology class, the high school student discovers that a dacha is being built in the middle of the nature reserve and the creek has been dammed. Winfried's father turns out to be the culprit, but the mayor is on his side. Ulla rebels against this environmental destruction connected to political corruption and organizes a protest. Her activism not only endangers her own future, but also her first great love.
