Deniz Göktürk, coeditor of Orienting Istanbul: Cultural Capital of Europe?, is associate professor in German and Film and Media at UC Berkeley.

“A magnificent achievement…defines for the first time Güney's universe with startling clarity.” Derek Elley

(Umut). Dawn breaks in urban Turkey, and as the comfortable class sleeps on, the working class sleepily rises to begin the day: street vendors set up their wares, news-hawkers settle on their corners, and a man asks about his only avenue of hope: a lottery ticket. Hope immediately announces a new direction for Güney, away from his gritty action films and toward an Anatolian adaptation of neorealism, one socially committed and infused with the rhythms of Turkish life. Our wistful hero, a cart-driver with a large family and a sense of hope, soon loses the cart and then the hope; what's left is sheer idiocy, as he embarks on a search for buried treasure that yields only dirt. Compared to The Bicycle Thief upon its release, Hope catapulted Güney-and Turkish cinema-to the world stage.