Frank Hildebrandt

Vietnam veteran Billy Ray Lancing, a former CSA agent who now works on a wildlife refuge in Northern Alaska, has been exchanging letters in a pen-pal relationship with Irina Morawska, a 13-year-old orphaned girl in Poland that he's helping out financially. When the letters suddenly stop coming, Billy heads to Poland to figure out why -- only to discover that the orphanage that Irina was staying in, which is financed by honest -- and unsuspecting -- good-intentioned Samaritans, is a cover for a human trafficking network.

After her release from prison Alex, who has lost her faith in love, tries to reclaim her psychic balance through a retreat into loneliness. A man and a child interrupt her plan and force her to reengage. Alex dares to emerge from her shell and learns again how thin the ice is and how fragile happiness is, small though it may be.

Young Danny has left his home town in the middle of nowhere (="Nirgendwo") behind and moved to Berlin to study business. The twentysomething enjoys big city life and independence. When his father dies unexpectedly, however, Danny has to return to the Bavarian hinterlands for better or worse. He reunites with friends from his youth, Kirsten, Rob and Fresi, and the eternal couple of Tom and Mischa. Moreover, Danny's feelings for his first love Susu are rekindled. Everything seems like it used to be. It soon turns out, however, that Danny's friends are all still searching and have not found their places in life yet.