The survival strategies of a young couple that has fallen through the cracks of the system. Oliver chances upon a few sentences on the internet, which immediately burn themselves into our memory. Soon thereafter Christian reads a newspaper article about a young woman, who, with her boyfriend, has been camping in the woods for half a year. Not because the two are nature freaks, but because they want to try out what it means to live differently.
After our feature debut, "Egoshooter", which captures the state of a solipsistic young man, who seems not to care about the future, we now want the protagonists of "Zarte Parasiten" to face the world "out there", as self-sufficient, headstrong, and self-determined heroes.
They are sensitive enough to realize, what is missing in people's lives - and then they put this knowledge to use as providers of human services.
We let Jakob and Manu loose upon an ailing society. Their motives are not altruistic; instead they use this strategy to make money. Jakob and Manu are no missionaries, but idealists acting for their own sake.
But with this line of work come certain dangers: Jakob and Manu absorb their clients' emotional garbage. They ingest it, so to speak. What remains are emotional scars, made of experiences and memories of jobs, to which they have devoted themselves wholeheartedly.
We learn, with our heroes, that the "parasitic market" is incredibly big. Our Tender Parasites have discovered an insatiable market niche. They have found a way of dropping out of society in order to, in return, exploit the reality of lack: Emotions for money, money for emotions - for Jakob and Manu an exhausting, wholistic experience.