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The Detour tells a semi-autobiographical tale of a young woman's obsession with a charismatic older writer. Dutch actress Tamar van den Dop plays Johanna, a directionless young woman unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend. Taking in a play by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, she finds herself deeply moved by its dark themes of suicide, solitude, and the impossibility of human contact. She begins to familiarize herself with all of Bernhard's work, becoming fascinated to the point of obsession. One day, on a trip to the French Pyrenees, Johanna decides to make a detour into Austria and seek out the famous man himself...

The film deals with the ancient Slovene folk custom of Shrovetide carnival when village youngsters wearing scary masks exorcise the evil spirit of Winter in a ritual dance, thus preparing the ground for the rebirth of Spring. The plot is set in the 18.century when Slovenia was ruled by the Habsburg dynasty. The authority is represented by a troop of soldiers, who come to the village with the task to prevent the carnival by force, but that it's not in their power, because the people prevail over any authority which does not stem for the people. In the fight between the authority and the people two youngster have been killed: Simon, who returns to his native village as a soldier and finds out that his former girlfriend is married to Stefan, and Jurij, who has been accidentally killed by his own brother Stefan.

Robbie, a divorced Amsterdam commoner, is meanly denied access to his son Tommi, except for monthly visitation. He grudgingly accepts when a loan shark offers to scrap his debt and throw in some cash for a simple service. Robbie must simply trick Marius, a man he never knew, to the port for a fictitious job. As he gets to know Marius, he starts feeling for the generous sociable type. His conscience wants him to warn the mark he's likely to be beaten up.

On an increasingly militarized border, an exodus of Mexicans and Central Americans is trying to cross a desert where thousands have died in search of the American dream. In this same territory, the last Tohono O'otham, the desert people, resist a diaspora that has put them on the brink of their demise. A thousand-year witness to exoduses and diasporas, the desert contemplates these two nomadic forces fighting against their destiny.

A man repaints his apartment. Through objects, photos, drawings he plunges back into his past. His future seems so dark that he ends up painting the whole apartment in black, including the windows, to absolute black.