La casa de Leyla

Leyla, now elderly and the last descendant of an old Ottoman family, is forced to leave her home on the Bosphorus, where her family has lived for generations, when it is fraudulently sold by the bank to a wealthy tycoon and his ambitious wife. The son of the villa's former gardener, Yusuf, takes Leyla into his home in Cihangir, a lively neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul, and tries to help her reclaim the house from which she has been unjustly evicted. There, Leyla witnesses for the first time the precarious lives of young people, artists, and the marginalized, and meets Yusuf's girlfriend, Roxy, a hip-hop singer and daughter of Turkish immigrants in Germany, who is not exactly thrilled about the elderly woman's arrival. As we read on, we are drawn silently into the lives and memories of all the characters, and little by little, the thread that connects their destinies is revealed in an unexpected and thrilling ending that makes Leyla an unforgettable character. With the magical backdrop of the Bosphorus, Livaneli guides us through stories suspended between a modern, Western Istanbul and the city of the late Ottoman Empire. Among ancient villas, ruined houses, and modern neighborhoods, we discover a kaleidoscope of characters, with their own worlds, who coexist in contemporary Turkey and the legacy of its past.