The Bandit

The Bandit (Turkish: Eşkıya) is a 1996 Turkish film written and directed by Yavuz Turgul and starring Şener Şen and Uğur Yücel. According to the director the film, which is about a bandit who comes to Istanbul after serving a 35-year jail sentence, "blends fairy tale elements while carrying the notion of reality within a fictional story." The film is highly popular in Turkey, where it drew in 2½ million viewers and in Germany where it won a Bogey Award. The film is exclusively regarded as the savior and the turning point of Turkish cinema which was desperately struggling against foreign films since the 1980s and having difficulty attracting domestic audiences. It was Turkey's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 70th Academy Awards.