A Strangeness in My Mind

At a family wedding, a poor street vendor named Mevlut catches a fleeting glimpse of a girl with whom he instantly falls in deeply romantic love. After a secret, three-year courtship of intense love letters passed via his plotting cousin, she agrees to elope with him. On a pitch-black night, the two come together in the dark for the very first time. Yet, as they rush through the shadows to catch a train to Istanbul, a sudden flash of light reveals her face, and Mevlut tragically realizes he has been misled—he has eloped with the wrong sister.

But the die is cast. Refusing to abandon her, Mevlut accepts his bizarre fate, and this singular twist of circumstance will determine the rest of his days. Over the next four decades, from 1969 to 2012, Mevlut works an array of low-paying jobs—selling yogurt, managing a parking lot, and serving ice cream—to support his fiercely loyal, loving wife and growing family.

This honest work gives him a uniquely intimate, frontline perspective on a rapidly changing Istanbul as it undergoes waves of political upheaval, modern development, and massive migration. Yet, every single evening, no matter the political climate, he walks the cobblestone streets to sell boza, a traditional Turkish winter drink. As he calls out into the night air, he observes the evolving city around him while quietly dreaming his dreams, seeking the source of the profound strangeness that lingers deep inside his own mind.