Two 10-year-old children experience - by proxy - the struggle between the need for environmental protection and the demands of a progressive transport policy.

Policies, which are described by their supporters as “forces of progress”.

Anna's father is a traffic planner in charge of the construction of the new Hamburg-Berlin freeway. During a visit to the construction site Anna and a male classmate run off, get lost and end up in a wild, romantic abandoned rail yard. Rudi, a former magician, lives at the yard. He and the children become friends and they often come to visit - but this magic world is soon to come to an end since the newly constructed freeway – which Rudi has named the “river of stone“ - will soon destroy Rudi’s living quarters. Rudi is scheduled to be relocated to a Berlin neighborhood called “Märkisches Viertel”. Rudi is distraught and desperate and the children barely manage to stop him from hurting himself.

Thorsten Näter, the film’s director, has struck a wonderful balance: He exposes the children to the threats their natural environment faces every day and poetically juxtaposes the idea that nature is very much worth saving. In the end he leads the children to imagine how they themselves can do something about preventing environmental destruction.