In the comforting and claustrophobic environment of a small Austrian mountain village, Karl (Ulrich Reinthaller) has been raised to be the pride and prize of his bourgeois parents. Shy, seemingly studious but actually given to daydreaming, Karl repays his parents' constancy with a crippling fear of the outside world. But Karl, having matriculated with difficulty, is pointed by his hopeful family in the direction of the university at Graz, and from there toward a medical career, so off he goes. A chance encounter, culminating in two days and nights with a young woman, initiates Karl's lieber-ation: the birth of his own sensations, the discovery of his own personality. This fine mood piece, the first feature of Austrian born director Maria Knilli, won the Max Ophuls prize at the Saarbrucken Festival, as well as the German "Oscar" for first film, and was Germany's entry to the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes.