Dresden in the Spring of 1961 – four months before the Berlin Wall was built. Siggi, aged 20, comes to Dresden, with the aim of taking up art studies with his parent's financial support. But his plans are foiled when he meets and falls in love with a young poet named Luise, whose poems are banned from publication in the recently founded GDR. Luise introduces Siggi to the “Red Cockatoo”, a notorious nightclub that dares to play music from the West – something unheard of in the GDR at the time. Siggi soon makes friends with Wolle, Luise’s fun-loving husband. Although there’s bound to be a Stasi informer among the group, passing on to the department every single detail about what goes on in the “Red Cockatoo”, Siggi finds himself being drawn deeper into this clique of young beatniks.