Ara Güler

Orhan Pamuk – Turkey’s Nobel laureate for Literature – opens a museum in Istanbul. A museum that’s a fiction: its objects trace a tale of doomed love in '70s Istanbul. The film takes a tour of the objects as the starting point for a trip through images, landscapes and the chemistry of the city. A film about Istanbul, love, memory and loss.

The film is set in present-day Istanbul. Selim is a shop owner in his early forties. He sells clothing for men in his shop situated in one of the back streets of Istanbul. Selim is a family man who has devoted his life to his home and his work. He lives with his wife Ayla, his six-year-old daughter Esma and his old father in a simple flat in and old, modest neighbourhood. He has warm relations with his family. He is an affectionate father. One of his neighbours, a young widow named Nihal tries to seduce Selim, but her flirtation leaves him cold. Selim is known for his honesty and integrity among his family and friends. He is a careful spender. As a little child, he has learned that money is not easily earned. He has no tolerance for petty "trickery" met in daily life. One day, Selim finds a bag full of dollar bills (approximately 500,000$) in a cab. From that day on, Selim finds himself in a bewildered state with a bag full of money on his hands.

Mehmet, a young Turkish man newly migrated from the village Tire, takes a job searching for water leaks below the surface of the streets of Istanbul. Due to a strange set of events, he is mistaken for a Kurd, imprisoned, and brutally beaten. Upon his release a week later, he becomes an outcast marked as a Kurd, losing his apartment, his job, and eventually his girl friend, Arzu. When a Kurdish friend, Berzan is killed in a street protest triggered by a hunger strike, Mehmet takes a trek to return the body to Berzan's home village near the Iraqi border, and learns why so many Kurds are refugees.

A television news anchorman, İsmet Berkan goes on a journey with his wife. Along the journey, out of the blue they start fighting. When he confesses that he cheated on her, she gets mad. Enraged, Leyla gets out of the car, enters a gas station and takes off with a man in a red sports car. Trying to track down his wife, the anchorman finds himself trapped in a bizarre world in the midst of murderers, cops and beautiful women.

Commissioner Kemal, who is nearing retirement, investigates a suicide case. Cezmi Kara, whose face has become unrecognizable, has been found dead in her home. Kemal suspects that this is a murder and obsesses over the dead man's face.

The film portrays the bus journey of a young woman played by the director herself. Throughout the journey, the woman's mind goes off to a few imaginary time zones and she starts dreaming about what could happen