“Tiere, vor denen man Angst haben muss” tells the story of two sisters growing up on a farm in 1990s Mecklenburg, where the boundaries between the generations and between nature and civilization are becoming increasingly blurred.

Autumn sets in and Madeleine is freezing. There is a smoldering stove in her room, but most of the time she has to make do with a hot water bottle. Madeleine lives with her sister Ronja and her mother on a dilapidated farm in the north of Mecklenburg. When the family moved here from Lübeck shortly after reunification, her mother fulfilled her dream of an anti-capitalist life in the countryside. First her father left, then her brothers, and now the house is overrun with numerous animals to which her mother devotes all her attention. While Madeleine ticks off her dreams in the Quelle mail-order catalog and waits for what others call the prime of her life, the girls have less and less room to live. How is Madeleine supposed to keep the house and the family together when her mother is constantly away and animals and plants bursting out of every crack? And how is she supposed to find her way to a self-determined future?