To A Land Unknown (15)
Directed by Mahdi Fleifel
★★★★

 
DOCUMENTARY filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel takes a unique and fresh look at the Palestinian refugee crisis in his first fictional feature which is part buddy film, part tense thriller. 
 
Twelve years in the making, this drama examines life in exile: what it feels like not to have a home and what it means not to belong. 
 
The film follows two Palestinian cousins who fled from a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon and end up in limbo in Athens waiting to raise enough money for fake passports. Their plan is to travel to Germany and set up and run their own cafe there. This is the dream that spurs the two men on when the going becomes unbearable.  
 
Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) is the brains while Reda (newcomer Aram Sabbah) is the heart and soul, and the one with empathy who questions the morality of their actions. The two resort to criminality such as mugging women, hustling people and then robbing them in order to raise the cash to pay for their new IDs. When Reda, a junkie, blows all their hard-earned money on drugs Chatila devises an extreme plan to pose as smugglers to save the day and get them out of Athens. 
 
The characters are inspired by George and Lennie in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men. Chatila is willing to go to whatever lengths, including holding hostage and torturing other illegal immigrants in the same boat as them, to escape their current hell. The question being, does the end justify the means? What would you do in their position in this dog-eat-dog world within a world?
 
Bakri and professional skateboarder turned actor Sabbah deliver electrifying and commanding performances in this nail-biting and intense drama which sheds fascinating light on what it actually feels like to live in exile. Something that Fleifel knows all too well as the son of Palestinian refugees. 
 
The film, part of which is based on a true story, is a labour of love and an homage to 1970s urban New York and American independent cinema. While it does not refer directly to the current situation in Gaza it provides an alternative perspective to the plight of displaced Palestinians. 
 
In cinemas February 14