Ruhul Amin's quiet, humane dramatic feature explores the conflicting influences in the life of Samir, a 9-year-old Bengali boy growing up in the East End of London.
Nellie (Pat Phoenix) is weak and bedridden in her aging, decrepit house due to a bad heart. Living out of her front room, Nellie is looked after by her son Harold (Tom Bell) who is going deaf and prone to eccentric and emotional outbursts following a motorbike accident some years previous.
Plumber Martin and his younger colleague Frank are on call on Christmas Eve of all days. Frank's girlfriend Regina, who is expecting her first baby at any moment, is anything but thrilled.
Milly and Louis, and their recently-widowed mom, Charlene, move to a new neighborhood. Once there, they all deal with a variety of personal problems, but Milly finds a friend in Eric, her autistic next door neighbor.
What are Ilona Herfurt and her boyfriend Dietmar Freistrath doing in the old mine? Where does the money come from that her son Jimmy finds under the newspaper? Where have the unique and intricately carved works of art, often passed down for generations, disappeared to from the village in the Ore Mountains? What do the carver Gerlach and his foster daughter llona have to do with it? Questions upon questions that are burning under the detective's nails.
Beate Klarsfeld, a German Protestant housewife, who, with the help of her Jewish law-student husband, Serge, begins an unrelenting campaign after World War II to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.
Something very common in our days, an adolescent who does not find communication with her mother or stepfather falls into a depression that drags her down paths of difficult return.