Born in 1937 to a Kurdish family near Adana and dying in Paris in 1984, Yılmaz Güney was a hugely popular film star in Turkey, known as the 'Ugly King', before turning to directing. A political activist, he was imprisoned several times. Writing from prison, he wrote the script for Yol (1982) and supervised its direction by his assistant Şerif Gören, and after escaping Turkey he edited it in Switzerland. It shared the Palme d'Or and was banned in Turkey until 1999. Earlier work includes Umut (1970), and he wrote the script of The Herd (1979), which Zeki Ökten directed.