Our Grand Despair

Ender and Çetin – both in their late thirties – have been friends since they were at school together. Çetin has been away for many years. Now he has returned to Ankara and has moved in with Ender, just as the friends always imagined they would.

Their best friend, Fikret, who lives in Germany and is spending his holiday in Turkey, is involved in a traffic accident which kills both his parents and leaves him injured. When the time comes for him to return to Germany, he asks Ender and Çetin to let his sister Nihal move into their all-male flat share. Reluctantly, the two friends comply with his wish. In the beginning the young woman’s presence irritates the two guys, who think of her as an intruder. Nihal is deeply traumatized by the loss of her parents and refuses to have anything to do with the two men. After a while, however, a certain familiarity develops between the three young people. As they get used to living with each other in their shared apartment, they begin to band together and enjoy spending time in each other’s company. Nihal’s relationship with Ender, who works from home as a translator, is more intellectual, while her conversations with Çetin, an engineer, are more mundane.

Later on, the inevitable happens: Ender and Çetin’s tender care of Nihal turns into love – although neither of them knows about the other’s love for this young woman. –Berlinale