Falling in love after a meet-cute on Hamburg’s frozen-over Alster Lake, Martha—a filmmaker with guilt over her privilege—and stalled architecture student Alfred begin a lively back-and-forth on every topic du jour. Meanwhile, Martha cohabits with her nanny’s family to feel a sense of social reality.

Shaking up the romance of a snowy cityscape, this comedy briskly hurtles from cozy meet-cute and artistic soul-searching to class anxiety and bureaucratic mess. Starring in her wryly self-reflective debut feature, Pia Frankenberg bottles life’s commotion into scenes of irresistible effervescence.