Liebeskuss am Bosporus (2011)

Jakob is an old-fashioned, out-of-touch bachelor who owes his landlady money and has spent months working on a piece of classical music. The record company he wants to sell it to has gone bankrupt. Another company, which produces only pop music and has no interest in his classical work, sends him to Istanbul to find a Turkish pop song that could be the summer hit of the year. Didem is a lively Turkish woman who lives in Berlin and studies fashion design. She plans to start her own fashion label, Babylonia Fashion, with a friend from her course. Her father wants her to take over his textile business one day and thinks she is studying business in Berlin. When a letter arrives saying she has been expelled from her (supposed) university, her worried parents fly to Germany to see her. Didem is warned by her uncle Ali, who is supposed to keep an eye on her but instead designs clothes with her. Didem, who had been living in her German boyfriend’s apartment, now has to quickly find a place of her own. Jakob and Didem meet by chance in the street and spontaneously agree to help each other. Didem can use Jakob’s apartment for five days, and in return he gets to stay in her parents’ apartment in Istanbul. Jakob has put up little notes around his apartment telling her what she may and may not do, but she and her friends ignore them and throw them away. When her parents arrive, they are initially satisfied. Meanwhile, Jakob has arrived in Istanbul, where Didem’s brother Serkan picks him up at the airport. Jakob immediately sets out to find the hit song and tries his luck at the club where Serkan works as a DJ. In time, he finds the music he was looking for among street musicians. He returns to Berlin early and is discovered naked in the bathroom by Didem’s parents. They now have to pretend to her parents that they are a couple in love, but Didem’s father sees through it. He offers Jakob money to give up on Didem. Jakob has, however, genuinely fallen in love with her, but he also needs the money because he cannot sell the music material he brought with him. In desperation, he goes to a pawnbroker, who takes him to his old recording studio. There, together with two Turkish rappers, they record the song “Kiss-Kiss on the Bosphorus.” After a physical altercation between Jakob and Didem’s ex-boyfriend, the owner of a record label who was supposed to release the song, Didem and her parents fly back to Istanbul. Although Didem refuses, since she has not yet taken her final fashion-design exam, her parents have their way. But her uncle and Jakob present the dress to the course director, and Didem becomes a state-certified fashion designer in her absence. Jakob borrows money from the pawnbroker once again so he can fly to Istanbul and meet Didem there. He manages to convince her and her parents of their love.