Beyond the Hill follows Faik, his son, grandchildren, and employees and their lives together in a village. Here, however, they face an enemy that determines the dynamics and the dramatic tension of the film: the nomadic ethnic group, Yörüks. The film can be read as a critique of Turkishness, one in which the ghosts of the Kurds roam around. Although the film is a study of society, politics, and the government in power, it can essentially be considered a powerful examination of the effects of the Turkish-Kurdish problem: a continual state of unrest which, based on the ethos of Turkishness, pervades the individual, the community and the state with paranoia.