Two 10-year-old children experience - by proxy - the conflict between the protection of the environment and the forces of transport policy, which are described by their supporters as forces of progress. Anna's father is a planner working on the Hamburg-Berlin motorway. On a visit to the site of the road Anna and a boy - a friend from her class - run off and get lost in a wild, romantic disused railway area. The former magician, Rudi, lives there, and the children make friends with him, often returning to visit him. But this magic world is soon to collapse, because the "river of stone" will smash through Rudi's living quarters. He is to be housed in a concrete housing estate in Berlin, Märkisches Viertel. The children only just save him from giving away his despair.
Näter, the director, has found the right tone; he presents children with a realistic picture of the dangers threatening their environment. He shows them, with a poetic touch, that it is well worth saving what they would lose. And he employs great fantasy to show that they could do something about it...