Overview
- The four-part documentary, which entered the ARD Mediathek on June 29, is also dubbed into Turkish and will be shown in a shorter edit on Das Erste on July 8 and in full on WDR on July 15.
- Directors Kristina Karasu and Michael Wech assemble rare archival material and testimony from former allies to trace Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's rise from Istanbul mayor to president, and the filmmakers say Erdoğan did not respond to requests for comment.
- The production faced significant access limits because many potential interviewees declined to appear for fear of reprisals and some Turkish voice actors refused to dub the film, a constraint reporters link to recent arrests, mayoral removals, and a government ban on demonstrations.
- Critics praise the documentary's archival finds but note it treats pro‑Kurdish politics and the case of Selahattin Demirtaş briefly and omits Turkey's military interventions in Syria and the war in Rojava, leaving important policy areas underexplored.
- The film situates Erdoğan's two decades of power in key turning points—his 1999 imprisonment, Istanbul mayoralty, the 2013 Gezi crackdown, and the post‑2016 state of emergency—and its release could shape international and domestic views of Turkey ahead of the early July NATO summit.