The architect Paul Neuhaus, recently left by his partner, receives an invitation from his old friends Ken-Ichi and Mitsuko. The mayor of a village near the disaster site of Fukushima, Mitsuko's uncle, asks Neuhaus to visit him. The area is contaminated, the villages are deserted, and the contaminated soil has been removed. The government desires resettlement, but the people are afraid. The mayor wants to recruit Neuhaus for an artists' colony - in the contaminated zone - to inspire new hope. Neuhaus travels with Mitsuko, and they find themselves in an inescapably intense closeness to each other. Is a future possible in the beautiful, polluted landscape of Fukushima, as well as in the love between Paul and Mitsuko? They are both accompanied by the reading of Adalbert Stifter. Just as there, the mysterious chain of cause and effect intertwines the realms of life equally.