Two old pals lose their work as boatmen on the Elbe river. While down-to-earth Gero tries to get back on his feet, reckless Kowsky keeps gambling with friendship and life time and time again. For all that, they set out together from Dresden for Hamburg, hoping to find new work, a new love, a new life.

Elbe

Once a well-known sports journalist in the GDR, Wolfgang Kerber (Selge) had to start over again after the fall of the Wall - as a police reporter in the back and beyond of eastern Germany. Under pressure from his boss and seeking to get closer to his estranged daughter, Margitta, Kerber investigates the case of a missing girl from Margitta's school. Hoping to land the big story about "the East's lost generation", he is more and more confronted with his own past. But he ignores all the warning signs. Instead, he begins to manipulate the story.