Cabbar (Yılmaz Güney), an impoverished, illiterate phaeton driver, loses his already half-dead horse when a rich man crashes into the cart. Now destitute and burdened with feeding his six children, wife and grandmother, Cabbar is offered several ways out. While winning the lottery is not in his stars, his friend Hasan's (Tuncel Kurtiz) and imam Hodja's (Osman Alyanak) wondrous plan to go out into the Kurdish wastelands to dig up an illusive treasure may be his only escape.

“I left forty lira at home, the family is hungry now.”

– Cabbar

Umut is Turkey's early venture into Neorealismo. Banned by the national board of censorship – the display of abject poverty, characters not observing morning prayer etc etc – the film was smuggled out off the country and into Cannes, where its screening urged the Turkish government to reconsider its decision. It's now seen as one of Turkey's most important cinematic masterpieces.