Saladin Film: 2017

The project was the brainchild of Turkey’s state-run broadcaster, TRT, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Culture. The goal was unambiguous: to reclaim the narrative of the 12th-century Kurdish-Muslim leader who recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. In a decade marked by President Erdoğan’s neo-Ottoman foreign policy, Saladin was the perfect icon—a unifier of fractured Muslim lands, a chivalrous warrior, and a merciful conqueror.

The director’s chair was given to Sedat İnci, a veteran of Turkish historical dramas. His mandate? Authenticity over Hollywood melodrama. “We are tired of seeing our heroes through Orientalist lenses,” İnci told a press gathering in Antalya. “Saladin was a man of justice. We will show his war councils, his poetry, his mercy to the Christians of Jerusalem. We will not reduce him to a sword-wielding cliché.”

Production began in the dusty plateaus of Cappadocia and the sprawling sets built outside Antalya, costing a reported $17 million—a staggering budget for Turkish cinema at the time. Thousands of extras, many of them army conscripts temporarily released for filming, donned chainmail and turbans. The cast was pan-Islamic: Turkish actors played the Ayyubid court, while guest stars from Egypt and Jordan filled out the Kurdish and Arab ranks. saladin film 2017

The role of Saladin fell to yet-to-be-discovered actor Uğur Güneş, a brooding presence with a calm intensity. In a pivotal scene filmed over two weeks, Saladin’s army marches on the Horns of Hattin. The sun blazed at 40°C, and a stuntman lost two fingers in a sword clash gone wrong. But the real drama was off-camera.

Screenwriters clashed with historical advisors. The film’s early script had erased the role of Saladin’s Kurdish heritage, instead framing him as purely “Turkish.” After outcry from Iraqi and Syrian media, a hasty rewrite inserted a single line of dialogue where Saladin says, “My father was a Kurd from Dvin, but my sword speaks for all Muslims.” The project was the brainchild of Turkey’s state-run

Meanwhile, the depiction of the Crusaders was a minefield. To avoid alienating Western distributors (though few would pick it up), the filmmakers avoided pure villainy. The character of Reynald de Châtillon, the historical Crusader lord infamous for torturing prisoners, is shown as a snarling psychopath—but other Frankish knights are portrayed with grudging respect. “Saladin respected Richard,” the screenwriter noted. “So do we.”

Date of Release: 2017 Original Title: Легенда о Коловрате (Legenda o Kolovrate) Primary Subject: The Siege of Ryazan and the Russian hero Evpaty Kolovrat. Contextual Subject: The representation of Saladin and the "Eastern Adversary" archetype in modern historical cinema. Western films, from The Crusades (1935) to Kingdom

Western films, from The Crusades (1935) to Kingdom of Heaven, have often portrayed Saladin as a noble “other” but still through a Eurocentric lens. A truly Arab or Turkish production would center Muslim agency, theology, and aesthetics. The 2017 film’s collapse left that hunger unfulfilled.

While the 2017 film died, the Turkish TV series Kudüs Fatihi Selahaddin Eyyubi (Saladin: Conqueror of Jerusalem) premiered in 2022-2023. This series, though criticized for historical errors and nationalist propaganda, effectively filled the void left by the 2017 film. In many ways, the series used the same script doctors, sets, and costume designs originally intended for the movie.