My Sister

Elif is ten years old| her sister Ayşe is 13. It’s a sticky summer in mid-1980’s, Istanbul. They live in a neighbourhood of lower middle class families. Elif freely plays on the street with her friends or alone, finding still green areas left between construction areas. Ayşe is on the thin border between childhood and puberty. She falls and injures herself while trying to see her newly emerging breasts in the small bathroom mirror. So she spends the summer lying on the couch in the small living room, irritated and depressed. Meanwhile, Elif listens to a song trying to decipher its lyrics, when she’s not running wildly on the streets. She drives Ayşe mad, for reasons she can’t quite grasp. Her older sister seems out of reach. Before summer ends, Elif’s mother takes them to a public beach with a neighbour lady and her daughter, Sermin. Ayşe behaves as if she’s there alone, putting on her headphones. Elif feels shut out of her sister’s life, physically and emotionally. As she plays silly games with Sermin, a boy on the beach catches her eye. She secretly observes and admires him as he plays football on the sand. When she catches him talking to Ayşe, Elif feels heartbroken, disappointed and humiliated. But all her feelings suddenly turn to guilt when Ayşe disappears under the waves and Elif is unexpectedly confronted with the possibility of loss.