Five university students are required to write a paper on a Kafka short story. In a smoke cloud of inspiration, they take a road trip to film it instead.

After suffering a severe head injury on the job, criminal investigator Tommy Wehrschitz is being suspended – for his own good. In order to deal with the changes in his life he decides to go to southern Burgenland, to sell property he inherited from his estranged father. Barely arrived, Tommy is invited to see the circus, which is currently in the village, but the colorful spectacle is cut short when a flying knife misses its target and kills an audience member instead.

A car drives through the snow. Behind the wheel is Nelly. She is thirteen years old. Nelly wants to go home. Separating her from her goal are three questions, two keys, a diving tower and a racing heart.

Alma Mahler's affair with the young architect Walter Gropius sets in motion a marital drama that forces her husband Gustav Mahler to seek advice from Sigmund Freud.

After many years abroad, Georg Bachler returns to his home village. There, old rivalries with his brother Otto, who has now risen to become the village emperor, quickly resurface. Otto's ambitious plans are just as much a reason for this as Georg's old love, Lisa, whom Otto hopes to marry, and not just for love.

Melanie and Walter seem to be happily married but then strange incidents begin to occur. Their house is broken into but nothing is missing. Someone is observing them and Walter is even pursued and harassed by a young man. The situation escalates when they find out that the daughter of their former housekeeper has died.

A newborn's destiny hangs in the balance, as grownups come to terms with what they cannot have.