RAHMA

An archaeologist struggling with infertility is ready to go abroad for surrogacy, but her plans change when she meets a young Syrian orphan girl, disguised as a boy.

İbrahim, who runs a restaurant in Urfa, and Meryem, an archaeologist working in Göbekli Tepe, have been married for ten years but have been unable to have children due to health problems. After six failed in vitro fertilisation attempts, İbrahim, who thinks in more traditional ways, turns to alternative medicine. Meryem, who thinks scientifically and rationally, wants to have a genetic child through surrogacy in Georgia as a last resort, despite İbrahim's opposition. She rejects İbrahim's suggestion of adoption because she herself was raised by a stepmother.
One day, a fight breaks out in the bazaar and İbrahim is forced to help a nine-year-old Syrian orphan named Rahim. When he realises that Rahim is ill and living on the street, he takes him in and gives him a job and a place to sleep at the restaurant.
When Meryem and İbrahim go to Halfeti for Eid al-Adha, they have to take Rahim with them. On the morning of the feast, Meryem helps Rahim to take a shower and then realises that Rahim is a girl, not a boy, and that her abdominal pain is caused by her first menstrual bleeding. Meryem suddenly finds herself in the position of a mother to the orphaned girl, whose real name is Rahma. Over time, Meryem becomes accustomed to Rahma and grows attached to her.

While things seem to be going well, her cousin Nidal, who is also involved in smuggling, appears and insists on giving Rahma to a German family under the pretext that she will have a better future. Desperate to keep Rahma, İbrahim persuades Meryem, and they travel to Georgia to have her healthy embryos implanted in a surrogate mother. On the way, Rahma discovers her cousin's true intentions and runs away. She contacts Meryem by phone. Meryem is very close to the border, and the nitrogen preserving the embryos is about to run out. Despite the biological motherhood she had defended until then, Meryem follows her heart – and goes to Rahma.

Main country of production:

Türkiye

Subjects:

journey, human rights, child parent relationships, migration, orphanage, street children, children, art, pregnancy