Alex Heeney reviews Mahdi Fleifel’s films To a Land Unknown about Palestinian refugees stuck in limbo in Athens, trying to go to Europe. To a Land Unknown is one of the best sales titles at TIFF 2024./p>
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Athens becomes a hellish limbo for Palestinian refugees who have left the refugee camps behind in search of an ever-elusive passage into Europe for a new life. Based on the world exiled Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel encountered while making his earlier documentaries in Athens, the fictional To a Land Unknown wears its origins on its sleeve with its cinema-verité shooting style.
To a Land Unknown follows two cousins – Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (skateboarder and first-time actor Aram Sabbah) – dreaming of a new life. Chatila has left his wife and son in a Lebanese refugee camp to keep his drug-addict cousin on the straight and narrow and find their next step. They’ve been stranded in Athens for so long that the city isn’t even an attractive tourist site. They talk about seeing the acropolis everywhere, but we never actually see it. And in one scene where they overlook a fantastic vista of Athens, the backdrop of the city is completely out of focus, so we can’t enjoy it either.
To survive, the pair turn to petty crime, which escalates as their desperation does, forcing them to question to what lengths they’re willing to go for a better future – and whether that future is even possible. A tense and often harrowing thriller, To a Land Unknown charts how good people can do bad things in an impossible situation, which forces every man to be out for only himself.
Contextualizing the film among recent Palestinian films
Most recent films about Palestinian experiences tend to be about Palestinians trapped in Occupied Territories or struggling with the culture clash of Israeli life. To a Land Unknown offers a different perspective and asks, what if you escape the Middle East but are caught in limbo? What then?
Mahmood Bakri gives an incredible turn as the more morally ambiguous Chatila. Having shaved the luscious locks he sported in Alam (TIFF ‘22) and The Teacher (TIFF ‘23), I didn’t recognize him at all, but I knew this was an incredibly charismatic actor who found every single beat for this character, a man who is constantly fretting and plotting. But I was convinced Bakri is one of the most exciting emerging actors to watch at TIFF when I realized the same actor gave an impressive lead turn in Alam.
