By the time we meet them, Chatila and Reda already are down in the lower depths. Cousins from Palestine, they have spent much of their lives living as refugees on the run. Having made it as far as Athens, a kind of holding zone for people from the Middle East trying to slip into Europe, they are trying to scrape together money to get to Germany.
Ferrety Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) is masterminding the cousins’ next fundraising operation in one of Athens’s pleasantly proletarian parks, directing his sweet-faced cousin Reda (Aram Sabbah) to fall over on his skateboard in front of a middle-aged woman who almost certainly will help him. Chatila’s job is to snatch her handbag and run. It’s mean, it’s shabby, and it’s miserably cheap. Their mark’s purse contains 5 euros, the price of a couple of coffees. They won’t be able to...
Ferrety Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) is masterminding the cousins’ next fundraising operation in one of Athens’s pleasantly proletarian parks, directing his sweet-faced cousin Reda (Aram Sabbah) to fall over on his skateboard in front of a middle-aged woman who almost certainly will help him. Chatila’s job is to snatch her handbag and run. It’s mean, it’s shabby, and it’s miserably cheap. Their mark’s purse contains 5 euros, the price of a couple of coffees. They won’t be able to...
- 5/24/2024
- by Stephanie Bunbury
- Deadline Film + TV
The story behind the making of Palestinian-Danish director Mahdi Fleifel’s second feature, To a Land Unknown, is probably as intriguing as the film itself. Shot on the fly in Greece, with production beginning exactly a month after the Hamas attacks of October 7th, the movie was somehow completed in time to premiere at Cannes just over six months later.
That may be something of a record in terms of delivering a feature, but it also speaks to the precarious and volatile situation the film is depicting: that of Palestinian refugees stuck in Athens en route to someplace else, caught in a purgatory between a home they can’t return to and a new one they don’t know.
For best friends Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), the heroes of Fleifel’s melancholic, shaggy-dog street movie, that purgatory has been going on for some time. When we first see the two 20somethings,...
That may be something of a record in terms of delivering a feature, but it also speaks to the precarious and volatile situation the film is depicting: that of Palestinian refugees stuck in Athens en route to someplace else, caught in a purgatory between a home they can’t return to and a new one they don’t know.
For best friends Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), the heroes of Fleifel’s melancholic, shaggy-dog street movie, that purgatory has been going on for some time. When we first see the two 20somethings,...
- 5/23/2024
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The brilliant Palestinian-Danish documentarian Mahdi Fleifel (“A World Not Ours”) leaps successfully into fiction with a feature debut that borrows a narrative container from “Midnight Cowboy” and a tormented soul that is all Palestinian.
The film opens with a quote from the celebrated Palestinian scholar, Edward Said: “In a way, it’s a sort of fate of Palestinians not to end up where they started, but somewhere unexpected and far away.” These words have been cutting since the moment they were first spoken years ago, but released into the world now during the horrific genocide in Gaza, they have an extra, desperate bite, as another generation is forced to seek displacement as the only alternative to violent death. Premiering at Cannes in this climate, Fleifel’s portrait of two individual characters asks questions that cannot be confined to the screen. Where do you belong after you have been driven from your homeland?...
The film opens with a quote from the celebrated Palestinian scholar, Edward Said: “In a way, it’s a sort of fate of Palestinians not to end up where they started, but somewhere unexpected and far away.” These words have been cutting since the moment they were first spoken years ago, but released into the world now during the horrific genocide in Gaza, they have an extra, desperate bite, as another generation is forced to seek displacement as the only alternative to violent death. Premiering at Cannes in this climate, Fleifel’s portrait of two individual characters asks questions that cannot be confined to the screen. Where do you belong after you have been driven from your homeland?...
- 5/22/2024
- by Sophie Monks Kaufman
- Indiewire
Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel’s assured fiction debut opens in a typical town square in contemporary Athens. The square is leafy and shaded, with plentiful orange trees, but it’s not prettified or bourgeois. The people hanging out there are a mixture of tourists, locals and those of indeterminate status, including Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), a couple of young men seemingly watching the world go by on a nice day in the city. They observe a small boy jumping to snatch an orange from a tree, before setting their sights on an older woman relaxing on a bench. Chatila confirms her as their target and the pair set in motion a modest and well-rehearsed bag-snatching scam.
It’s the first of many attempts the pair will make to raise money. Chatila and Reda are Palestinians, stuck in Athens, hoping to reach Germany. The duo are cousins, and...
It’s the first of many attempts the pair will make to raise money. Chatila and Reda are Palestinians, stuck in Athens, hoping to reach Germany. The duo are cousins, and...
- 5/22/2024
- by Catherine Bray
- Variety Film + TV
The tragic predicament of the Palestinians and what they’re now being subjected to begs to be analyzed and dissected, with various areas of dubious historical consensus put to new scrutiny; in Mahdi Fleifel’s fiction debut To a Land Unknown, we’re solely in a disorienting present tense, where there’s seldom time to think and reflect, only to agitate for survival.
The director himself was raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, a background echoed in the film’s key characters, before he settled in Denmark and studied in the UK; thus, he’s never lived under direct contact with the Israeli occupation. Acclaimed docs followed, most notably I Signed the Petition, a 10-minute short that went semi-viral, concerning the calls to boycott Radiohead’s 2017 concert in Tel Aviv. Evidenced by To a Land Unknown, his move to fiction is quite seamless, if always abetted by the...
The director himself was raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, a background echoed in the film’s key characters, before he settled in Denmark and studied in the UK; thus, he’s never lived under direct contact with the Israeli occupation. Acclaimed docs followed, most notably I Signed the Petition, a 10-minute short that went semi-viral, concerning the calls to boycott Radiohead’s 2017 concert in Tel Aviv. Evidenced by To a Land Unknown, his move to fiction is quite seamless, if always abetted by the...
- 5/22/2024
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Directors’ Fortnight is always a chance to catch films at the Cannes Film Festival off the main drag of the Croisette, out of the main competition, and with an eye toward boundary-breaking works. Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight world premiere “To a Land Unknown” is the only Palestinian feature to screen at the festival, and IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer below.
The film follows Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), cousins and refugees stranded in Athens and trying to reach Germany. To escape Greece, they hatch a plan to pose as smugglers taking hostages, with dire consequences for their friendship. “It’s especially moving to me, in these incredible times, to present a Palestinian film at Cannes. As Palestinians, we challenge media stereotypes, but more importantly, we defy invisibility, a struggle we’ve faced since the beginning. Our stories are needed now more than ever,” Fleifel, born in Dubai...
The film follows Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), cousins and refugees stranded in Athens and trying to reach Germany. To escape Greece, they hatch a plan to pose as smugglers taking hostages, with dire consequences for their friendship. “It’s especially moving to me, in these incredible times, to present a Palestinian film at Cannes. As Palestinians, we challenge media stereotypes, but more importantly, we defy invisibility, a struggle we’ve faced since the beginning. Our stories are needed now more than ever,” Fleifel, born in Dubai...
- 5/18/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
British-Palestinian filmmaker Farah Nabulsi returns to her roots by shooting a film entirely in Palestine, particularly in Burin over three months, in an effort to highlight the issues the people in the area face.
The Teacher is screening at Red Sea Film Festival
Palestinian schoolteacher Basem grapples with loss after a tragic event involving his son, channeling his grief on helping his students, and particularly two brothers who come from the same village he does: Yakoub, who has just been released after two years detention in a military prison and currently acts as his brother's, Adam, “bodyguard”, with the latter being the brains and him the muscles as he so eloquently mentions in one of the first scenes of the movie. Lisa, a new social worker, also tries to help Yakoub, which is what brings her closer to Basem. At the same time, a high-profile American attorney and his wife...
The Teacher is screening at Red Sea Film Festival
Palestinian schoolteacher Basem grapples with loss after a tragic event involving his son, channeling his grief on helping his students, and particularly two brothers who come from the same village he does: Yakoub, who has just been released after two years detention in a military prison and currently acts as his brother's, Adam, “bodyguard”, with the latter being the brains and him the muscles as he so eloquently mentions in one of the first scenes of the movie. Lisa, a new social worker, also tries to help Yakoub, which is what brings her closer to Basem. At the same time, a high-profile American attorney and his wife...
- 12/9/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
Palestinian filmmaker Firas Khoury’s fiery feature debut “Alam” (The Flag), which won the top prize this week at the Cairo Intl. Film Festival, sent a charge through the audience at its Middle East premiere, with moviegoers bursting into applause several times during the screening.
Khoury, however, was unable to witness the reception firsthand. The director, who is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, applied for an Egyptian visa with his Palestinian passport ahead of the festival. Egyptian authorities, he said, never replied. He’ll try his luck again with Saudi Arabian authorities ahead of “Alam’s” next screening at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, which runs Dec. 1 – 10.
Speaking to Variety from his home in Tunis, Khoury said he was saddened to miss his film’s first screening for Arab audiences, although upon hearing reports of the rousing ovation in Cairo he simply said, “Amazing. Amazing.”
“Alam” follows a Palestinian-Israeli teen,...
Khoury, however, was unable to witness the reception firsthand. The director, who is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, applied for an Egyptian visa with his Palestinian passport ahead of the festival. Egyptian authorities, he said, never replied. He’ll try his luck again with Saudi Arabian authorities ahead of “Alam’s” next screening at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, which runs Dec. 1 – 10.
Speaking to Variety from his home in Tunis, Khoury said he was saddened to miss his film’s first screening for Arab audiences, although upon hearing reports of the rousing ovation in Cairo he simply said, “Amazing. Amazing.”
“Alam” follows a Palestinian-Israeli teen,...
- 11/23/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
In the appealing, naturalistic drama “Alam,” a middle-class Arab teen living in a village in the Galilee undergoes a political awakening catalyzed by a pretty, outspoken girl from his high school class. Just like the protagonist, the audience, too, receives a provocative civics lesson on the symbolism — and power — of flags and what constitutes resistance. This intelligent, sensitive treatment of the rarely seen, everyday lives of young Palestinian citizens of Israel marks tyro feature writer-director Firas Khoury as a talent to watch, as well as a solid acquisition for Film Movement, the North American distributor. “The film. ”Alam” nabbed three prizes, including best film and audience award, at the Cairo Film Festival.
The story unfolds through the eyes of watchful, artistically-inclined Tamer, a high school senior nearing his matriculation exams. Like his friends, loudmouth Shekel (Mohammad Karaki) and electronic games nerd Rida (Ahmad Zaghmouri), Tamer shares the concerns of a typical male slacker: girls,...
The story unfolds through the eyes of watchful, artistically-inclined Tamer, a high school senior nearing his matriculation exams. Like his friends, loudmouth Shekel (Mohammad Karaki) and electronic games nerd Rida (Ahmad Zaghmouri), Tamer shares the concerns of a typical male slacker: girls,...
- 11/23/2022
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
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