Der Umsteiger is Giuseppe Caputo, the passenger in transit.
A deep sense of guilt has tormented and haunted him for years: a ring stolen from his uncle during the years of his drug addiction.
A barber in Sicily, a dishwasher in Germany, he now stands at the threshold of retirement. He visits places between Heidelberg and Mannheim — a symbolic mirror of a journey into his memory that leads him to explore the shadows of his past and the uncertainties of his future, in a stream of consciousness.
He crosses the German landscape to reach his cousin, who is about to leave for Sicily and whose hair he regularly cuts. Along the way, he encounters massive industrial and postmodern structures that defy human scale, imposing themselves heavily on the landscape — a stark metaphor for his existence: a solitary pedestrian crushed in the relentless gears of a productive and ever-moving society.
In this place of friction, Giuseppe now finds himself at a crossroads: return to his hometown in Sicily to enjoy retirement — or set off once again?