Adnan arrived at the small film festival with a backpack and a short documentary about abandoned cinemas. At the evening reception, he met Lara, an actress who lowered her voice whenever an older man in a white jacket approached. She introduced him as a producer. Later, on the steps, she said he was also her fiancé, although she no longer wanted the relationship.
Adnan listened until midnight. She spoke about a contract that prevented her from leaving the film, fees she would have to repay, and an apartment owned by the producer. She did not ask for help. That was precisely what convinced him he should help. The next morning, he was invited to a meeting in a suite, where two men opened a folder containing a supposed debt. Lara sat by the window, looking as though she wanted to disappear.
They demanded payment before the festival office closed. Adnan had money from selling his car, intended for a new camera. He said he wanted to speak to a lawyer first. The man in the white jacket smiled and explained that any delay would destroy Lara's career. Then she repeated a sentence from the previous night about filming on an island. Only this time, she named a different island.
The small detail stopped him. He looked at the contract heading and noticed a production company absent from the festival program. He asked them all to go to the organizers together. One man said there was no time. Adnan stood up. The door was not locked, and Lara suddenly followed him. In the hallway, she quietly told him not to pay anyone anything.
In the festival office, she explained that they had hired her to play a desperate fiancée. She had thought, she said, that they would take only a small fee for supposedly canceling a meeting. When she saw Adnan's savings on his phone screen, she understood the scale of the fraud. She handed over messages and details of the other participants. The organizers called the police and gave her somewhere to wait, without promising that a confession erased what she had done.
Adnan watched the final screening alone. Lara later sent an apology, and he wished her future jobs in which the audience knew they were watching a performance. They did not begin a romance. On the way home, he stopped at an equipment store and bought the camera he had planned. Its first shot showed the festival hall in morning light, without guests, music, or anyone telling him which role he should play.