Ayla (2010)

In Munich, 25-year-old Ayla, attractive and deeply hurt by her Turkish family, lives on the margins and leads a double life of her own making. She is still in contact only with her sister Hülya. By day, she works as a kindergarten teacher; at night, she has a side job as a provocative cloakroom attendant at a club. Her loving, warm-hearted manner with the children stands in stark contrast to her courageous, selfless behavior whenever she senses injustice. Wearing herself down as she struggles between being single and longing for the security of a home, Ayla falls passionately in love with the sensitive photographer Ayhan of all people. But she does not yet know that Ayhan embodies precisely the part of their shared culture that she rejects. At the same time, Ayla spontaneously takes in the mother of one of the children at her kindergarten when the woman begs her for help in a panic. Hatice has to flee with her daughter Elif from her strictly Muslim family because she wants to divorce her husband. By chance, Ayla painfully discovers that the man she loves is Hatice’s feared brother. Torn between two worlds and forced to choose between her love and her convictions, Ayla is plunged into a dilemma.