Serif Gören on October 14 1944, in Ksanthi, Greece. Gören began his film career as an editor and later as an assistant to the director Yilmaz Güney. Gören and Güney started by directing Endise (The Anxiety) in 1974, but Güney ended up being arrested. Gören continued to direct the film and The Anxiety became a successful film, and the first one that Gören directed alone, winning several awards at the 12th Antalya Film Festival in 1975, including Best National Film and Best Director National Award. He made more than 30 films over a decade. He was also arrested in 1979-1980 and started directing YOL a year later,in 1981.

Yilmaz Güney, Kurdish director, screenwriter, writer and actor was imprisoned for political reasons from 1960 to 1962 and from 1972 to 1974. In 1975, he was accused of murdering, after a drunken fight, a Public Prosecutor, and was convicted to 19 years in prison. During the entire period in which he was imprisoned, he continued to work, writing scripts and directing.

It was during this time that he thought of Yol (which means “the way” in Turkish). Güney worked with a script with very clear and rigorous annotations, which he later passed to Şerif Gören, who did all the filming. It is said that Güney accompanied the filming, seeing the negatives in prison, and even projected parts of the film on the cell wall. After filming ended, Güney received a week's permit to spend a week at home, just like on YOL. He ended up running away and went to Switzerland and then to France, where, with Şerif Gören, he edited the film in a very short time, in order to be able to apply for the Cannes Film Festival. Due to the short time and some setbacks, Güney always considered that the film was unfinished and promised to finish it, but in 1984 he dies, victim of cancer, without getting to conclude the films as he wished.