Treeless Mountain

Stefan Balsiger is a congenial, average councillor to the Swiss embassy in Havanna. While accompanying an US senator on his mission in Cuba, he makes a botch of so many things, that a minor blunder by the Senator turns into a serious incident, which intensifies into a second Cuban crisis - thanks to further entanglements by the media, police, and diplomats who represent the arch-enemies USA and Cuba. Only one person can eventually solve the crisis: Stefan Balsiger himself.

Sparks fly when a greeting card executive arrives in Santa Fe to acquire a tight-knit family company that creates ornaments inspired by Mexican Christmas traditions.

Spanning 18 years in an Iranian women's prison, this follows two women: the new prison warden, a tough as nails devout Muslim who has served in the army on the Iraqi front, and a young midwife, Mitra, who is serving her sentence for killing her mother's abusive husband. In the early years, Mitra is repeatedly punished as the warden tries to break her. This includes punishment for delivering a baby in the prison cell while all of the prison staff has taken shelter during an Iraqi bombing. The warden's attitude starts to change after 8 years, when Mitra tries to protect a new inmate from rape at the hands of her older cellmates. When the baby comes back in 1991 as a 17 year old delinquent, Sepideh, the warden respects Mitra enough to protect the girl.

After many years in Germany, the young doctor Lena returns to South Africa, the place of her childhood, for the first time. Her grandfather Jo, on whose farm she lived with her parents, is terminally ill. With the help of her partner Felix and her mother Sarah, Lena tries to persuade the headstrong old big-game hunter to seek treatment in Germany.

Kati leaves her hometown - a small provincetown in northwestern Germany - to live in the city of Hamburg. Being about 18 years old she has just finished school and seeks her freedom away from home. She knows she loves women but never dared to live accordingly. In Hamburg she soon finds a lover and a good friend, too, and the strength to face the narrow-minded people at home. After struggling with it for some time she returns for a visit to tell at least her mother and best friend.