Two suitcases, a schoolbag, a cuddly toy – that’s all Nelly Senff and her son Alexej take with them to start their new life in the West. A Volkswagen stops in front of their house in East Berlin. A West German takes them over the border. Nelly pretends to marry him. She is nervous. It’s summer, late 70s – three years after Wassilij’s death. Nelly’s boyfriend died in a car accident. Since Alexej’s father is dead, Nelly wants to leave, too. Away from the GDR, to leave the memories and the grief behind. To get a fresh start.

That should be possible on the other side of the Wall, or so Nelly believes. When she leaves, when she gets into that car, she wears a floral dress. But over there, in the West, she doesn’t know anybody. The first place of refuge for emigrants, the cramped Emergency Refugee Center in West Berlin, is her only shelter. And the place, where her past is catching up with her: The Allied secret services demand information on Wassilij. Allegedly he was a spy. Nelly has to decide if she lets the trauma of the past destroy the future she had in mind for her and her son.