The story of the German sail-training ship Pamir that sunk in a hurricane.

Hannes Schmitz works as a garbage collector in Hamburg. The ex-soccer player now coaches the youth team of a suburban club. His sayings are just as feared as his unconventional ideas in labor disputes. Hannes lives on a houseboat that he restored himself and has a well-balanced relationship with his likeable long-term fiancé Isolde. His pride and joy is his pretty and clever daughter Annika, whom he raised alone. He would do anything for her. He even slips into an uncomfortable suit and tie and has himself chauffeured to Hamburg-Blankenese. In the small family circle, Hannes is supposed to get to know his future son-in-law, the young chef Alexander. Annika is amazed when she is received with her father in a grand villa.

More than fifty years have passed since Harry left his great love Elly head over heels to go to America. Now he has returned to see her again - and must discover that she lives as a nun in a Protestant monastery. At first she refuses to contact him, the pain is too deep that he has not been alive throughout the years. Only when she learns the true reason for his supposed silence does she let Harry back into her life. With the memory of the past times, the two also return to the old feelings. Elly gets into a deep moral conflict

Budapest in the thirties. The restaurant owner Laszlo hires the pianist András to play in his restaurant. Both men fall in love with the beautiful waitress Ilona who inspires András to his only composition. His song of Gloomy Sunday is, at first, loved and then feared, for its melancholic melody triggers off a chain of suicides. The fragile balance of the erotic ménage à trois is sent off kilter when the German Hans goes and falls in love with Ilona as well.

Farocki’s intriguing and troubling film explores the processes of visual perception and how they affect our understanding of history and society. In a work reminiscent of the writings of Paul Virilio and Michel Foucault, Farocki examines a range of phenomena including aerial reconnaissance photos of the Auschwitz concentration camp.