Du bist nicht allein (2007)

A housing estate of prefabricated apartment blocks in East Berlin. Mr. and Mrs. Moll have been unemployed for years. Mr. Moll is a master painter by trade, and Mrs. Moll is a butcher. When Mrs. Moll gets a new job as a security guard, the couple’s life changes. She is given a uniform and has to take a preparatory course. Mr. Moll keeps busy painting the partition between his balcony and the neighboring balcony. Jewgenia Lehmann, a German-Russian woman, moves into the neighboring apartment with her father and her daughter, Tonka. The Molls’ son, Svenni, tries to make contact with the girl, but she acts aloof. Mr. Moll has a somewhat easier time of it. His wife encourages him to help the neighbors, and in the process he falls in love with Jewgenia. It seems that even his dreary everyday life still has adventures in store for him. He gets carried away by the situation, without his wife noticing and without realizing that Jewgenia welcomes his neighborly help, but nothing more. Another new neighbor of the Molls is Kurt Wellinek. Unemployment has driven the physicist to drink and eventually led to his separation from his wife, Sylvia. Sylvia is a former actress who is now trying to return to her profession. Her first jobs are as a dubbing artist. The director raises her hopes of getting a part in a television series. Supposedly, they are looking for a plump woman. Sylvia pads herself with cushions and several layers of clothing for the audition, only to learn that the screenwriters have changed the role and are now looking for an anorexic woman. Her disappointments at work gradually lead her back to Kurt and help her understand his problems better, since he suffers even more from his own inactivity. She puts little notices on lampposts around the neighborhood announcing free tutoring in math and physics. This gives Kurt a renewed sense of purpose. Meanwhile, Mrs. Moll, too, has to realize that her job is not as important as a company trainer had tried to make the long-term unemployed believe. At night, she guards an empty tennis hall filled only with air. Her marriage, too, seems to be nothing but a bubble, and she realizes what her husband feels for Jewgenia. Mr. Moll has to accept that his new zest for life will not last. He decides to travel to Holland, where painters are wanted.