A drama about young Palestinians in exile

“Towards an unknown land”

Cannes film festival

The story behind the making of Palestinian-Danish filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel’s second feature film, Towards an unknown land, is probably as intriguing as the film itself. Filmed on the fly in Greece and production began exactly one month after the Hamas attacks of October 7^ththe film was completed in time for its Cannes premiere just over six months later.

This may be a record for a feature-length film, but it also speaks to the precarious and unstable situation the film depicts: that of Palestinian refugees stuck in Athens on their way to somewhere else, caught in a purgatory between a house 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 and shaggy street film, this purgatory has been going on for some time. When we first see the two twenty-somethings, they are hanging out in a park, seemingly doing nothing, until we realize they are about to steal D’s purse. ‘a woman. They have few resources and no job opportunities, so their only goal is to steal enough money to buy fake passports and move to Germany, where life could be better.

Holed up in a graffiti-filled squat occupied by other migrants, they lounge around during the day and kill time however they can, whether that’s skateboarding through the city or, in Reda’s case , to take heroin. Fleifel’s description of their world is both authentic and dark: they are passionate, dreamy young men like the rest of us – Chatila also has a wife and son stuck in a Lebanese refugee camp – but they have been rendered immobile by the situation in which they live. Palestine (but not specifically Gaza, which is never alluded to in the film) and all the strict European immigration policies that work against them.

There is a Midnight Cowboy-story aspect of two underprivileged guys trying to leave the city for somewhere better, and the fact that Reda does tricks in the park to pay for his drug habit is something straight out of the 1970s. York . Likewise, Thodoris Mihopoulos’s grainy 16mm photography feels like a throwback to another era, when films were made on the fly with just a few actors and a few locations.

Fleifel channels this vibrant urban energy throughout the film, although there are a few stretches in the second half that tighter editing could correct. A plot ends up breaking out when the two friends cross paths with a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa), who is trying to join an aunt in Italy. In what can only be described as an act of pure humanity, Shatila and Reda decide to help him, even if it means putting off their dreams of going to Germany and opening a cafe.

At the moment, Towards an unknown land takes a decidedly darker turn, with Shatila enlisting a Greek woman (Angeliki Papoulia) to escort Malik on his flight, even though she is an alcoholic and trustworthy. While the friends wait to see if their plan worked, they hatch another plan to pose as smugglers and steal money from three Syrian refugees. It is truly a world where well-meaning men resort to crime, violence and even torture when there is no other solution. Fleifel never shrinks from the lasting damage that exile can cause, like it or not.

Much of the film takes place in the squats and streets of Athens, and we never once visit the ruins or famous tourist sites of the Greek capital. At one point, Shatila asks Malik if he has ever seen the Acropolis, to which the boy replies, “Yes, every day, it’s right there,” meaning he doesn’t care when his whole life is at stake.

This does not mean Towards an unknown land lack of culture, it must be memorable when someone recites a few verses by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish that are initially mistaken for rap lyrics. It’s a telling moment, especially as it describes the very situation Chatila, Reda and so many others find themselves in as conflicts engulf the Middle East and other parts of the world. Despite all the running, skating, and scheming the two friends do across town, they seem doomed to stay where they are.