Frühling - Schmetterlingsnebel (2021)

Village helper Katja Baumann is confronted this time with relationship problems and lies people tell about their lives when she is asked to fill in for a campsite owner who is in hospital after falling from a ladder. Katja’s day also gets off to an unpromising start: a stranger steals her handbag from her car, and then the car breaks down as well. As a result, she arrives at the campsite rather late, where a small queue has already formed. Fortunately, most of the campers are seasoned visitors, such as Fritz Lohner and Hilde Frank, who have spent their holidays together in peaceful companionship at the campsite year after year for 40 years, making Katja’s work a little easier. However, there are also a few difficult cases among the regular guests, such as Uschi Brüderle, who has something to complain about regarding everyone and is especially hostile toward her neighbor at the campsite, Catrin Zerbe. Catrin has been living at the campsite with her two daughters, Greta and Lotti, for a year because she lost her job and, as a consequence, her home. While collecting the campers’ rubbish, Katja happens to find her wallet, which was in the stolen handbag, but it is empty. She tries to work out which of the holidaymakers might have been the thief by analyzing their rubbish. A piece of paper she finds with a math problem points to the Zerbe family. Catrin is initially angry at the accusation, but then confronts her daughter Greta, who admits to the theft. Greta explains that she wanted to make it possible for her little sister to go on a school trip. Greta apologizes to Katja and promises never to do anything like that again. As soon as this problem is resolved, there is another surprise. Fritz and Hilde have died in an accident during an outing, and now their spouses arrive—to Katja’s great surprise. Katja is confused: she had thought the two were a happy married couple and had been almost a little envious that people could still be so fond of each other after 40 years. Hilde had told her about a butterfly nebula, which forms when stars, shortly before they die, shed their layers of gas until only their inner cores remain. Katja’s personal life is similarly turbulent, because Jan has “disappeared” indefinitely. This leaves not only Katja and his son Adrian on their own, but also his cook, Leslie Wolff, who now has to manage the entire restaurant operation alone. Katja does not want to tell Leslie that Jan has withdrawn for serious health reasons. She hopes he will find the courage to tell the others the truth himself, but so far he simply has not been able to bring himself to do so.