Athlete

Hatice is a weightlifter in her twenties living in Ankara, where the greyness of the bureaucracy shadows on its inhabitants. She lives with her unemployed mother on the outskirts of the city, struggling to make ends meet in economically and socially unstable Turkey. Having already proven her skills, her aspiration is the lifetime allowance provided by the government to medallists in international competitions. In order to ensure her success in the next World Championship, she decides to use doping. Only that she must find a way to come out clean in the meticulous tests of the World Anti-Doping Agency. She finds out a simple and old method: hormonal boost during pregnancy. She has to get pregnant 8-12 weeks prior to the competition, secure at least the bronze medal and have an abortion afterwards. None of the potential one-night-stands wants to get himself into trouble with the responsibilities of a pregnancy. The clock’s ticking and as no other alternative is left, she approaches her coach, Halil, a married man and a father figure in her own father’s absence. She carries out her plan, but during the camp before the championship, the weight of her actions starts to kick in.