"Lying on the floor with my red dress on and I don't really know what's going on", Karsu sings in her beautiful rich voice. Even in her parents small Turkish restaurant, she's exudes the aura of a star when she sings her own jazz ballads. Her father was brought up listening to the music of his homeland, Turkey, but Karsu's real passion lies in jazz. At seventeen years old, Karsu, like any other teenager, still spends her days in school trying to prepare for her final exams. But in the evenings at the family restaurant she's started the journey to another world. Often staying up all night, she writes songs telling of love affairs and secrets, although she insists these are never her own.

Somewhere in dealing with everyday teenage life, with the help of her parents, Karsu starts to be noticed on a wider scale and gets closer to her dream of "holding my own CD in my hands". She is picked to be part of an exchange that provides musicians from different backgrounds the opportunity to play in Carnegie Hall, New York. This performance really gets the ball rolling on her goal to produce her own album. TV Networks can't seem to get enough of the eighteen-year-old. They turn up at the studio where she's recording for interviews, compare her to Norah Jones and through their publicity capture the interest of several large recording companies.

"The songs I write are never about me", Karsu says to one journalist guardedly, when asked what her song is about. But one Turkish musician who plays with her sees quickly through her front. Amidst this blossoming career, Karsu is keeping a secret. When two boys come into the restaurant, filming has to stop. "Can't I film boyfriends?" the director asks, but her reply is curt. "No, we don't mention things like that...never with the family." As her parent's culture and her Western environment collide, Karsu can seem almost torn in half. Her father just wants to protect his daughter's private life, because it is "something holy". As she says, "everybody knows, but they pretend they don't, because it's not official".

But Karsu has found a way to talk about her strictly guarded world. As her song says, "I do it with this melody". At nineteen years old she has a contract with Sony, is recording her first album and plays to packed out shows that receive standing ovations. They also get her grandma's approval, showing she must be doing it right.

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Official Selection, Documentary Edge Festival, 2013

International Premiere, IDFA, 2012