Schweizer Fernsehen (SF)

Bill Diamond, a celebrated photographer, has spent a lifetime with people and things that, once they have disappeared, can never be brought back to life. In sleepless nights spent pouring over the faces in his photos, Bill spins yarns around the memories, fears and hopes the photos bring back, telling us about the photographer Mark and Jessi – the beast, and the beauty – the fairy tale of a fleeting instant.

Robert, a masseur who is hard of hearing, is unaware that he has inherited millions. Four people want to take it from him: stockbroker Kuhl, his employee Späh and their friends Anna and Iris. Späh wants his girlfriend Iris to marry Robert in America in order to get half of the money. After a murder that Späh commits, but of which Robert seems suspicious, Robert actually flees to America, but not with Iris, but with Anna, who has since gotten wind of the affair. Robert and Anna marry in Las Vegas, and it is only back in Munich that Robert finds out about his inheritance. Robert leaves Anna, Späh shoots Kuhl and there is a showdown between Robert and Späh on a French island.

A journalist is assigned to interview an eccentric anthropologist who has exhumed the skeleton of Jörg Jenatsch, a revered freedom fighter who was mysteriously murdered in 1639. Initially disinterested, the journalist begins to uncover unflattering truths about the national hero and experiences visions in which he seems to be witnessing events that transpired over 300 years ago. As he obsessively pursues the investigation, his personal life and his grip on reality disintegrate, drawing him relentlessly toward the fatal carnival at which Jenatsch was killed.