In the Rhineland in the 1960s, Hans Gunter, a rather shy young man in his mid-twenties, is one of the top players in the country at Tipp-Kick— a tabletop soccer game. When one of the metal figure players accidentally falls into a bath of photo-chemicals, it comes to life as a blond young football star, creating havoc in the life of its owner.

In a loose set of cabaret pieces, Steffen Mensching and Hans-Eckardt Wenzel - highly acclaimed East German poets, songwriters and clowns - satirize East German life in its final days and the arrival of new times after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The clowns are allowed to leave prison to sing for people outside. As they perform their pieces, however, the country sinks into rebellion, the prison is attacked and looted, and the people chase the clowns away. Latest from the Da-Da-R was the first film made by an artistic production group that had fought for independence within the structures of the state-owned DEFA film studio for years. "Da-Da-R" is a wordplay on the irreverent Dada art movement of the 1920s and the German acronym for East Germany- the DDR.

25-year-old electrician Thomas Tänzer is happily escaping the provincial confines of everyday life in the GDR – to the desert, to work in Algeria. Behind him lie a failed marriage and abandoned studies. But he can't cope in Algeria either. The rules have traveled with him – in the form of his superiors. Unordered solidarity, his relationship with the married Doris, and similar issues cause him difficulties. His father falls seriously ill, and he cuts short his stay abroad. At home, he realizes that his wife and child have become complete strangers to him. Doris, his "Algerian affair," now has a child by him, but treats him coldly. He makes a half-hearted suicide attempt by car, which he survives. When he hears about a disaster in Algeria, he volunteers for service, but is not accepted because of his poor personnel file.

Wolfgang Stein spends years in Bautzen prison for attempting to flee the republic. He was ransomed by the West German government in 1971 and ended up in a reception camp in Unna. There he falls in love with a nurse, Anne, with whom he soon moves in together, who becomes pregnant by him and whom he soon marries. One day, an old friend, Dieter Michaelis, a fellow prisoner from Bautzen, comes to the reception center and asks Stein to work as an escape helper for his brother-in-law living in the GDR.

Based on a novella by Bertolt Brecht.

The "Dagger of Batu Khan", a goldsmith's work from the 10th century that was thought to be lost, is discovered in a bricked-up cellar vault. Sebastian, whose father is the head curator at the "Green Vault" in Dresden, and his friends are allowed to help prepare the museum's exhibition of the dagger. They accidentally learn that the dagger is to be stolen and their lives are put in danger when they thwart the planned theft.

A tricky case for Inspector Jury and his (ex-)aristocratic friend Melrose Plant: In Rackmoor, a picturesque Yorkshire harbor town, a woman dressed as a harlequin is murdered. The dead woman is said to be Dillys March, the adopted daughter of the extremely wealthy Colonel Titus Crael, who disappeared 20 years ago and has now unexpectedly returned. His son Julian Crael, however, believes she is an imposter. In his opinion, the woman pretended to be Dillys in order to gain access to Colonel Titus's fortune. Did Julian perhaps kill her?

The philosopher Democritus has a toothache, so a dentist from ancient Abdera sets off for his house. En route, he gets into a fight with a donkey driver. This conflict eventually causes all of Abdera to go crazy. Just when the city is seconds away from having a civil war, Democritus' apprentice shows up to ease the city's tensions with a gift.