Three years after his conviction for drug trafficking, Erich Kessel is about to be released from prison. It's a particularly trying time for this addiction-free former narcotics officer, whose seriously ill daughter has just died. With his wife, Claire, ready to give him a second chance after years of separation, and his former colleague and friend, Superintendent Mario Diller, having found him a job as a bartender, Kessel is determined to prove himself beyond reproach. But shortly before his release, the double murder of a young drug dealer and his fiancée, daughter of the powerful Syrian crime boss Walid Schukri, threatens to ruin his fine promises. The latter, who is serving a long sentence alongside Kessel, offers him a handsome sum to catch his daughter's killer. For the former commissioner, now broke, the temptation is great to accept this juicy contract, the ultimate investigation on the frontier of legality.
In the midst of the war in Gaza during the Second Intifada in 2003, two 12-year-old boys, one Palestinian and one Israeli, along with a former surfing champion, form a friendship united by the love of water and learn from each other.
A man in search of his son: Adil Bahdari comes from Berlin to Passau after a fisherman finds an expensive watch with a dedication on the back on the banks of the Danube. The watch was a gift from Adil Bahdari to his son Ahmed, whom he has not heard from for some time. He hires private detective Ferdinand Zankl to search for his son.
In an apartment building in Beirut, on the last day of the year, seven characters start their day by visiting their psychologist as part of the weekly ritual. On that couch in their psychologist's office, they face themselves and their loved ones in trying to define what is most important to them. Each of them, from the patients to the residents of the building, has a different story to share, inner secrets and hidden wishes. All keep to themselves, except for the porter Abou Karim, who extends his presence and allows himself to interfere in the lives of others and in their destinies.
In 2011 the Syrian people rise up against the Assad regime. When Dr. Haider, a pediatric heart surgeon, loses his brother in a terrorist attack, he decides to fulfill his last wish, finding himself questioning everything he has always believed in.
The four friends Lukas, Julius, Gino and Sanchez are trying to survive the everyday life in Neukölln, Berlin between drugs, gangs, rap, violence and boredom. Until they are one day making a serious decision with serious consequences because of a dead certain plan.
Chief Inspector Fredo Schulz receives a surprising diagnosis: the doctor tells him that he has colon cancer and only has three months to live. He should do something nice. “What’s that supposed to be?” Fredo asks himself and goes to work. He and his colleague Radu Lupescu are called to an apartment block in front of which a security guard was shot. He accompanied the owner Samir Berri, who is planning to clear and renovate the apartment block. Fredo has already arrested Samir once - for drug trafficking. He suspects that Samir is just laundering money with his supposedly clean real estate transactions.
A pizza baker orders his listless driver to deliver pizzas. The order has been placed by two policemen who are monitoring a property. They plan the big coup by taking the money from the gangsters under surveillance themselves and absconding. The gangsters themselves are expecting a drug deal. However, when the deal goes wrong and the policemen intervene helplessly, the pizza delivery man sees his chance and disappears with the money.
A washed-up music producer finds one last shot at redemption with a golden-voiced young girl in Afghanistan. However, when jealousy gets the better of a disgruntled ex-boyfriend, he decides to oppose the young star with talent of his own.
The three garbage collectors accidentally get on the trail of a protection racket in the Neukölln neighborhood: Snack bar owner Mohammed has to fend off an aggressive gang of youths and eventually resorts to drastic measures - but Werner discovers that the situation is not quite as clear-cut as it seems. Meanwhile, Tarik's extreme jealousy puts his relationship with Werner's daughter Annika at risk.
Yak, a troubled pop musician, receives shocking news. His father, who’d rushed back to his home country of Syria decades ago, and whom Yak had nearly forgotten about, is in a coma in a Cologne hospital. There’s another surprise: Yak has a 15-year-old half-sister named Latifa, who speaks only Arabic. Circumstances compel him to travel across Germany with her.
Trapped in Damascus, surrounded by war, a lonely man becomes increasingly lost in his fantasies of fleeing and the inner dialogues with his dog.
Four very retired, ex-GDR spies, or "Kundschafter des Friedens" as they were officially named, led by the once legendary Jochen Falk, are called on by the German government. Their mission is to rescue the interim president of the divided Republic of Katschekistan, who has been kidnapped by separatists, along with Berlin's official man on the ground, Franz Kern. To keep Jochen and his maybe no longer so crack team under control, all of whom are determined to prove they were treated unfairly by history, they are put under the command of the young and enthusiastic BND agent Paula Kern.
18-year-old Layla, a Dutch girl with Moroccan roots, joins a group of radical Muslims. She encounters a world that nurtures her ideas initally, but finally confronts her with an impossible choice.
A mother attempts to keep her family safe as war rages and a sniper lies in wait outside her home.
Risking his life, Luke ventures to Rome to visit Paul -- the apostle who's bound in chains and held captive in Nero's darkest and bleakest prison cell. Haunted by the shadows of his past misdeeds, Paul wonders if he's been forgotten as he awaits his grisly execution. Before Paul's death, Luke resolves to write another book that details the birth of what will come to be known as the church.
Karim, a student from Syria, lives peacefully in Hamburg with Lilly, his pregnant girlfriend. One day, he hears that his brother is imprisoned in the infamous jail in Aleppo. He leaves for Syria to find his brother.
Youssef's cousin Jamila is said to be forced into marriage, but at the henna evening the German groom is disfigured with baseball bats. Soon afterwards, Youssef and his fellow detective Anne Fuchs find Jamila's secret lover - dead.
To be able to travel to Europe and find the love of his life, Sam Ali, a Syrian refugee, accepts to have his back tattooed by one of the most sulfurous contemporary artist; becoming that way a precious work of art.
Derviş Zaim turns his camera into a tragedy in Syria this time and reminds once again the value of telling stories. Flash memory is from a true story; It is inspired by a Syrian military officer secretly taking out 11,000 photographs documenting the regime's violence against civilians and opponents. Losing his ability to speak as a result of an attack, Ahmet starts working in a unit where people who died in conflicts are photographed and recorded. He wants to announce what he sees to the world, and to give voice to stories stuck in war. He has to choose between protecting himself and his wife or fulfilling his responsibility to humanity.
A trained theologian with a truck driver's license joins Werner Träsch's team. Former pastor Matthias is surprisingly good at tackling difficult tasks. But he can't hide the fact that he is in trouble for long: His ex-girlfriend Anna makes it impossible for him to see their five-year-old daughter Lotte, despite having joint custody.
Zobel and Karl are a long time gay couple who live together in a trailer home with Lizzie, Zobel's spunky daughter from a heterosexual misadventure. Together these three form a team of thieves who eke out an existence as pickpockets. After a botched job, Karl becomes unable to work, forcing Zobel and Lizzie to seek out a new partner. Lizzie recruits Rudolf, the boyishly charming town misfit. Reluctantly, Zobel allows Rudolf to join them but warns him to never break the golden rule: "No exchanging of bodily fluids within the team." This dictum becomes increasingly difficult to live by as Lizzie's cravings and Zobel's own passions toward Rudolf intensify. Eventually, the golden rule is broken by Lizzie...and then again by Zobel (unbeknownst to Lizzie, of course). An intricate love triangle soon develops amongst the three that is shaped by deception, desire, and betrayal.
