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Walking along a Paris street, following a meeting with his brother's girlfriend Anne (Juliette Binoche), Jean (Alexandre Hamidi) contemptuously throws an empty paper bag into the open hands of Romanian beggar Maria (Luminita Gheorghiu). Music teacher Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke) witnesses this, and when he demands that Jean apologise to Maria, the two get caught in a scuffle which results in both Amadou's arrest and Maria's deportation. Michael Haneke's film takes this brief moment and follows the paths of all its main characters over the subsequent weeks, tracing the subtle ways in which different lives intertwine in modern-day Europe.