AllMovie

A man has to acclimate himself to the sweeping changes of 12 years of German unification literally overnight in this bittersweet comedy-drama. Martin Schultz (Jorg Schuttauf) was a citizen of East Germany when he was convicted of manslaughter in July of 1989. Martin is released in the year 2001, and he discovers the Berlin he knew is a thing of the past, with East and West Germans free to travel back and forth as they please, the dividing wall a thing of the past, and the city unfamiliar after over a decade of new construction. Martin tries to start his life over again with his former wife Manuela (Julia Jager) and son Rokko (Robin Becker), but they seem nearly as foreign as Berlin's new terrain, and Manuela's new lover advises Martin to keep his distance. Martin ends up taking a job at a pornography shop and falls into a life of petty crime with his co-worker Ludmila (Edita Malovcic).