İpek Türktan

At Turkey’s oldest zoo, a lonely manager and a neglected female officer form an unlikely bond: as they hide the death of the zoo’s oldest inhabitant, an Anatolian leopard, in order to stop the privatization process and fake its escape, they set in motion an absurd charade that spins out of control. In Turkey’s grey and quiet capital, the ghost of the leopard persists.

Jale, a free-spirited street vendor in her late thirties, roams around the forsaken shores of the Bosphorus. She crosses paths with heartbroken teenagers, an obnoxious admirer, exorcists, exhibitionists, fellow street sellers, fisherwomen and treasure-hunters. Like frogs gathered around a pond, they only have each other––and the timeworn, yet still glittering, Diamond Sea.

In the heart of Istanbul's prison, Zakir controls the letters prisoners receive. His average day is spent between the censorship office, his colleagues and his evening writing class. For a writing assignment, he steals a photo from one of the letters, in which appears Selma, an inmate's wife. More than an inspiration, she becomes an obsession for Zakir. He observes her, makes up stories, and imagines the worst to the extent that he puts himself at great risk.

Welcome to the New Istanbul. A massive concrete jungle feeding on chaos and hypocrisy; it's inhabitants at the end of their tether. Tahsin is a burnt-out architect suffocated by his existence in this very city. One night, he re-encounters an old friend, Siren; a changed woman who now lives on the remote southern coast of Turkey where she works on an organic farm. Instantly enchanted, he decides to follow her down south. He packs his suitcase, bids angry farewells at work and heads for the airport. Yet, little does he know what a tragicomic odyssey awaits him.

Tufan who works at a small print shop lives in Eskişehir with his wife Mukaddes and daughter Simge. Huriye, their lonely neighbour next door falls ill one night. A doctor recommends that she shouldn’t stay on her own. Tufan takes pity on Huriye, who has no family to turn to, and decides to host her at his house.

Şehnaz, a young female psychiatrist from Istanbul, starts mandatory duty in a provincial town. Back in the city, she maintains a marriage that looks flawless on the outside. Elmas, a young woman on the verge of breakdown, opens a new path in her.

Hasret has been seeing the same nightmare for some time, but she keeps living unaware that what she sees is actually remembering. A 30-year-old woman who works in a News Channel, living alone in the flat left by her musician parents who died in a car crash twenty years ago. Is it? The question creeps into her mind, and then (or maybe even before) her life through recurring nightmares: Is it possible that her parents did not die in a car crash?

Levent killed the men who raped his girl friend and stayed in prison for 15 years. He got out of jail and he had nowhere else to go rather than his sister's Selma. Their father who is an Alzheimer patient is missing for 2 months. Police founds a dead body and calls Selma for identification. Levent and Selma struggle with the darkness of the past and fear of the future.

Ahmet, who had recently lost his wife and little daughter in a traffic accident while he was away with his lover, is a prominent person dealing with "head work". As someone who does not care for anybody and does not knuckle under anything, he moves on quite unaffected. Yet some things start to change in himself and his life without any apparent reason.

Two sisters in their early thirties find themselves isolated in the Aegean summer cottage of their childhood, as they must deal with their uneasy sibling relationship and confront their devastating recent past past.