Kerstin floats stoically across the Mecklenburg Lake District in her red GDR kayak. Aimlessly, between tourism and dreariness, she glides over the water for days, striving to remain alone. The many rivers and lakes are familiar to her. But where does Kerstin come from? What is she fleeing from? Who is pursuing her? The evenness of this journey breaks when Alima appears, finally asking the paddling loner the right questions.
The shy Hugo is a caretaker in a prefabricated building. He feels at home here, is appreciated by the residents and sings his songs in the corridors. Dramatic changes make Hugo uncomfortable in his home. Similarly dissatisfied is Johanna, who lives in a bus in front of the house and faces racism and sexism on a daily basis. The two grow closer - sharing a sense of not quite belonging and, above all, a love of music. For Hugo, the world is visibly coming apart at the seams: birds that reject freedom, a dollhouse that develops a life of its own - At the same time, a catastrophe is brewing in very real life that puts Hugo and Johanna's friendship to the test.
Melanie is in her mid-thirties and works for the Brandenburg police. Her precinct is the province north of Berlin. Melanie likes it when anybody likes her. If it gets political, she keeps herself out. But that's no longer so easy when her best friend Lydia, an ex-daily soap star, makes herself important as a populist influencer with right-wing slogans in her home village and a street disappears overnight. Its bumpy cobblestones were the last evidence of a dark time when building material for the Wehrmacht was mined at the Kiessee, today a bathing area. Forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners toiled here. Elementary school teacher Anja considers it a thoughtless mess that this stone memorial to history should simply be asphalted. With brown homeland paroles, Lydia heats up the mood in the village and earns good money through clicks on the Internet. When the violence escalates, law enforcement officer Melanie, who is addicted to harmony, has to decide which side she is on.