The failed poet Wessel Franken trades his career in poetry for a career as director of a publicity agency.
Born in Amsterdam in 1943, Paul, a Jewish man, attempts to locate his twin brother (or perhaps his alter ego), who was abducted forty years ago and sent to a Nazi concentration camp. As he searches, he becomes increasingly immersed in the story of his life, as well as in an analysis of post-war Jewish identity.
Alternating comedy and drama this portrait of different families on three floors in an Amsterdam building where the stairs symbolizes the suffering of known urban living alongside each other. Upstairs live two students, including the failed and unemployed singer Karin with Harrie and Wouter down with his demented mother.
