With provocative dresses and a lot of make-up, the 19-year-old Melanie defies her bleak hospital stay in Masserberg in Thuringia. For years, she suffers from a very serious eye disease that will lead to blindness without expensive therapy and expensive drugs. Mel dreams of freedom in the West and is convinced that they could be treated there as well. So you only the new doctor Carlo Sanchez remains as a worldly glimmer of hope. As their escape plans fly up and Carlo is to spy on behalf of the Stasi, begins for the unequal pair a race for life and death, love and freedom.