In Breathing, nineteen-year-old Roman Kogler (newcomer Thomas Schubert) is serving time in a juvenile detention center. He has already served half of his sentence, and could be released on probation, but his chances are poor: he doesn't have a family, and seems incapable of coping with society. After many failed attempts, Roman finds a probation job at the municipal morgue in Vienna. One day, Roman is faced with a dead woman who bears his family name. Even though it soon turns out that she is not his mother, Roman wonders about his past for the first time and starts looking for her.

The acclaimed directorial debut from veteran Austrian actor Karl Markovics (star of the Academy Award winning The Counterfeiters), Breathing is an eloquent, affecting portrait of an incarcerated teenager.