The 'Ugly King' who smuggled cinema out of prison — legend or provocateur?
A mockumentary about Turkey-based Kurdish film director, scenarist, novelist, and actor Yilmaz Güney, shot three years after the filmmaker's death. It's also a political portrait of 20th century Turkey.
Direction
Weisz interrogates his own documentary form
Editing
Jagged cuts between prison, Cannes glory, absence
Director
Claude Weisz
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Güney directed 'Yol' from prison via smuggled notes; it won Palme d'Or 1982 while he was still incarcerated.
The 'Ugly King' nickname came from his brutal onscreen persona in Turkish pulp cinema — he weaponized his own monstrous image.
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