Yılmaz Güney

Yılmaz Güney was a Kurdish film director, scenarist, novelist, and actor. He quickly rose to prominence in the Turkish film industry. Many of his works were devoted to the plight of ordinary, working class people in Turkey. Güney won the Palme d'Or with the film Yol he co-produced with Şerif Gören at Cannes Film Festival in 1982. He was at constant odds with the Turkish government because of his portrayals of Kurdish culture, people and language in his movies. After killing a judge, something Yılmaz claimed to be innocent of, and being convicted in a trial in 1974, he fled the country and later lost his citizenship.