Elaha

A film by Milena Aboyan

The 22-year-old German-Kurdish woman Elaha (Bayan Layla) is about to get married. She is engaged to Nasim, the brother of her employer at a cleaning service. The wedding is scheduled to take place in a few weeks. At a party, while secretly smoking with her friends, the topic arises of what is expected of many young women in her community: they are expected to enter marriage as virgins. Some future in-laws even demand a medical certificate as proof. However, Elaha has already had sex and now faces a dilemma. To have her hymen surgically reconstructed, she would need money that she doesn’t have. Small capsules with artificial blood are said to help fake virginity – but will they work? Elaha starts to question the rules: Why and for whom does she actually need to be a virgin?

World premiere: 73rd Berlinale, Perspektive Deutsches Kino, 2023. German cinema release: 23 November 2023.