A private-hospital director in Istanbul decides the only cure for his city is his own election to local office, whether or not anyone asked him to run.
What is You Know Him about?
Doctor Kemal runs a private hospital in Istanbul and treats his own political ambitions as a foregone conclusion. Convinced that Beyoglu district needs him as mayor, he sets about campaigning with the confidence of a man who has never once doubted his own diagnosis. His ex-wife, sceptical from long experience, offers no encouragement. The patients and diners who benefit from his hospitality accept the free meals without pledging their votes. Even the party leader he hopes will back him keeps mistaking him for an architect rather than a physician, and his own driver seems unconvinced. Kemal's slogan promises that the doctor has the cure, a catchy line that runs headlong into a political culture built on favours, family ties, and quiet nepotism far beyond what any single campaign can fix. Director Ercan Kesal, who also plays Kemal, builds the film around a man whose self-belief outpaces his self-awareness at every turn, watching him mistake charm and generosity for genuine support. The comedy sits close to the drama throughout, since Kemal's blind spots are played for laughs even as they say something sharper about how local power actually circulates in Turkey.
About the cast
Ercan Kesal, who also directs, plays Kemal with a mix of warmth and obliviousness that keeps the character sympathetic even at his most self-deluded. Selin Yeninci, İnanç Konukçu, Nazan Kesal, Muttalip Müjdeci, Valeriu Andriuță, Zafer Diper, and Serhat Midyat round out the circle of family, staff, and political hangers-on who each see through Kemal in their own way, giving the film several distinct vantage points on the same overconfident man.
Context & significance
You Know Him arrived in 2020 as an Istanbul-set comedy-drama that treats a mayoral vanity run as a lens on everyday political life rather than a satire of any one figure. The Beyoglu setting, a dense and storied district of the city, grounds the campaign in a specific, recognisable civic texture rather than an abstract stage. Kesal's dual role as director and lead lends the film a personal, close-focus quality: the jokes land at Kemal's expense, but the film keeps enough sympathy in view that the nepotism it depicts feels observed rather than merely condemned.
Watching You Know Him on Ktime
You Know Him streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, so viewers can follow Kemal's campaign either way. Watching requires a K-Time account login, and the page itself is free to browse. The platform is built around a Farsi-first viewing experience for Persian-speaking audiences, with a Farsi interface designed to make browsing and watching feel native rather than translated.