Flemming Laybourn

North Friesland today: After the death of his father-in-law, Hauke Haien takes on two important roles in coastal protection - dyke count and director of coastal protection. Professionally, Hauke is the best man for the job; he is a visionary who lives and thinks in harmony with nature. Only people are not his cup of tea. As a loner, Hauke hardly knows how to inspire an audience and win over fellow campaigners. His warnings about the effects of climate change are dismissed as hysteria in the village, even though the coastal inhabitants know that a drastic change of course in climate policy is unavoidable. Fortunately for Hauke, his wife Elke supports him. She manages to make him heard. But Hauke does not enjoy his success for long, because when it becomes known that his plans are much more radical, he is met with incomprehension and anger. Resistance and pressure wear on him. Disaster can no longer be averted.

June 14, 1941, 3 a.m. Over 40000 people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are deported by Soviets to Siberia. Among them is a philosophy student Erna, a happily married mother of a little girl. Separated from her husband, Erna and her daughter are dispatched together with other women and children to remote Siberian territories. Despite hunger, fear and brutal humiliation Erna never in next fifteen years loses her sense of freedom and hope of returning to homeland.

A successful artist loses control of his life after his young daughter's death. A chance for a new start appears, but all is not what it seems.

There is civil war in Finland between "Whites" and "Reds". A woman soldier of the Reds is captured by the Whites. She is ordered to be executed. A lieutenant is enforced into a homosexual relationship with his commanding officer to save the Red female with whom he is infatuated.

Sari is a young, beautiful and intelligent girl who is busy studying at university,but she suffers from epilepsy and has to face death on a daily basis. Mikko is hersomewhat older university teacher, who is tired of life, and who one day decides toabandon his wife, children and idea of a perfect life. Both characters have been tooscared to live their lives to the brim for too long. But they meet, and in spite oftheir prejudices and reserved natures, they manage to create a dramatic and movingmodern romance which confronts numerous taboos. While the imagery explores theboundary between life and death in a most poetic way, the odd couple's romance istold with both bite and humour. Society - be it in the shape of angry ex-wives,overprotective parents, conservative aunts or embittered colleagues - is doing whatit can to put a spanner in the works."

On one summer evening, four strangers are brought together by a mysterious murder. A case which at first seems like a regular crime investigation turns out to be something more - a tale of love, alienation and new hope.

Two stories for the price of one: a video store clerk tries to get acquainted with a waitress; a man beats his pregnant wife, unaware that her brother is a violent racist.