A cornfield. For Mohammed “Ziko” Ghunaim, after fleeing Syria in 2015, this is what Germany means for two years: “a state of waiting in the middle of nowhere…”

When he is finally able to travel, he finds inspiration in a disused coal mine, a Volkswagen Beetle in Wolfsburg, and memories of the war in Syria in Berlin.

In 2018, he is able to move to Hamburg. Three years later, he becomes a theatre-maker at the Thalia Theater.

Hamburg becomes a new home for him. But there is still the other home: Damascus, Syria. Present in the news, on his phone during video calls with his parents, in old photographs with friends. He bakes “memory bread,” listens to “Fairuz at the open window,” and, like the jasmine plant waiting in his living room, he waits for firm roots to grow – and for blossoms to appear.

Ten years in Germany are not a straight path. The euphoria of a new life in safety mixes with the melancholy of a lost homeland. And from time to time, the “monsters” return: nightmares that bring old traumas back to the surface.

The film follows Ziko through these years, weaving together the places and moments of his life in Germany with videos and photographs from his personal archive – and with his own texts: poetic fragments, snapshots that reflect on his journey and run throughout the film.