Ghosts are all around us. According to director/co-writer Christian Petzold, they are represented by the homeless, the jobless, the disconnected, living alongside us-in a sort of visible parallel world. The drive to reconnect with this world and have so-called normal lives, is what creates ghosts. The ghosts of the film are Françoise, Nina and Toni, three women all living half lives, seeking connection and finding a kind of closeness with each other. Françoise is a French woman who travels to Berlin regularly to search for the daughter who has been missing for a decade. Nina is a vulnerable girl on her own, lacking any significant relationships she can rely on. Toni is another girl at a home for troubled teens who becomes her only companion after a fleeting moment of intimacy. When Françoise meets Nina by chance, the spooky resemblance and identical scar gives her hope for her lost connection. The goal is a release for all three vulnerable women from their distanced, ghost-like lives. Petzold′s original inspiration for the film is in the Grimm Brothers′ The Shroud.