Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Filmmaker Hermann Vaske explores the creative Balkan world in the hopes of understanding the meaning of "Balkan spirit", by interviewing philosopher Slavoj Žižek and various artists. However, the term's complexity very quickly becomes apparent and it seems increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to define the Balkans' geographical location, its people and its culture. Indeed, contradiction, chaos and change is at the Balkans very core.

Ahmet is a film director, considered by others to be an idealist and as someone who lives for his principles. He considers himself to be an arrogant non-believer. Ahmet wants to adapt Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment to film. Feeling groundless indifference towards his film project and his lover, Serap, he lives like a hermit in his apartment. As events develop, his assistant, Elif, is doing pre-production work for the film and searching for an actor to play the novel’s protagonist, Raskolnikov.