Reis Çelik’s Night of Blindness (Kas Film ) has emerged as one of the early front-runners in the Shanghai International Film Festival’s main competition, offering audiences a gripping, tension-soaked experience as it follows one night in the life of a woman trying to escape her homeland during the Turkish military coup of 1980.

And you’d be hard-pressed to find a film that’s more personal among this year’s impressive main Golden Goblet line-up, given that it’s based on the director’s own experiences.

That much is revealed as the credits roll — and the audience is still catching its collective breath — when there’s a note from the filmmaker offering thanks to the people who helped him in that escape.

But for Çelik, the experience of reliving — on film — whatever trauma he went through was never the point here.…