Aktion C+M+B (2000)

Marianne is an unemployed single mother of three children, Philipp, Betty, and Jimmy. They have different fathers, none of whom pays child support. Since the family is struggling financially and Jimmy’s father is from Africa, Marianne comes up with the idea of dressing the children as carol singers and going from house to house to collect money. However, the money is not for the Catholic Youth Movement’s carol-singing fundraiser, but for her own pocket. Using worn-out curtains and old carnival costumes, Marianne—who would have liked to become a fashion designer—transforms the children into the Three Wise Men from the East. She herself puts on a nun’s habit. But the scheme does not go as hoped: some of the people they visit are even more needy than the quartet. For example, they fetch coal from the cellar for an old woman to heat her home. The drunken bartender Mark tries to commit suicide, but he is talked out of it. Marianne runs to the nearest pharmacy for a woman with chronic heart disease. When she returns, her children are gone. They had fled after Philipp’s religion teacher recognized them. While searching for the children, Marianne runs into Mark again, and he subsequently helps her. The religion teacher reports the group to the police as fraudsters, and the police begin pursuing them. After Mark, too, sees through the scam, Marianne confesses to him that she has a criminal record because of a fight with one of the children’s fathers, and that she is at risk of losing custody of the children. The social worker, Magister Schwerkov, also wants to expose the quartet’s fraud. However, Mark manages to find the children in time and bring them back to Marianne without their costumes. By then, the children had asked for donations for Jimmy and his poor siblings and had collected quite a bit of cash. Marianne and Mark eventually kiss.