Es scheint, als wäre Lena ein Sonntagskind: erfolgreich im Job und Erbin eines Hotels. Merkwürdig daran ist jedoch, dass sie den Mann nicht kennt, der sie in seinem Testament bedacht hat. Sie reist in die thüringische Stadt Saalfeld, um sich ihr Erbe anzusehen und beschließt zunächst, das Hotel zu verkaufen. Als sich für sie jedoch die Situation in der Firma verändert, überlegt sie es sich anders und tritt ihr Erbe in vollem Umfang an. Doch ein Hotel zu führen, erfordert mehr als Selbstbewusstsein und Cleverness, wie sie schon bald zu spüren bekommt.

Ironies abound in this extremely sad melodrama about Elif, a Turkish immigrant in Germany who has been sent to prison for murdering her abusive husband. At the time of her imprisonment, she has never ventured outside the Turkish community, and even there has had no friends because of the demands her husband placed on her. She speaks no German. Now, in a place which most people find to be hell on earth, she gains a never-before known taste of freedom among these strangers, who don't even speak her own language. Unfortunately, as a "guest worker," she is horrified to discover that she is soon to be transferred to the horrific prisons of Turkey and will stand trial there for her crime, which will be much less understandingly dealt with in her home country than it would have been in Germany. The false paradise she must say goodbye to is her German prison.

Iran 1979. The Islamic Revolution is shaking up the country. Dissident Omid, who lived for several years in the German Democratic Republic with his wife, chemical engineer Beate and their mutual daughter, hears the call from his homeland and returns to Teheran with high hopes and best intentions, bringing along his family.