Director Mahdi Fleifel’s crime drama To a Land Unknown, which had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, follows a fairly simple plot: Two Palestinian refugees, Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), have been stranded in Athens for months after fleeing a refugee camp in Lebanon. Their goal is to make their way to Germany by whatever means possible, scouring Athens for money and resources.
What makes this film compelling, then, is watching what they are willing to do to make that trek possible. Their efforts become increasingly dangerous, starting with stealing wallets for spare change to kidnapping and acting as smugglers to secure necessary passports and documentation.
Circumstances get more complicated after the two meet Palestinian thirteen-year-old Mailk (Mohammad Alsurafa), who was abandoned by his father after his mom died. “That kid is a gift from heaven, man. God sent him to us,” Chatila tells Reda at one point. To help Malik make his way to Italy and reunite with his aunt, the cousins put their own needs aside to concoct a plan with the help of a reluctant Greek woman, Tatiana (Angeliki Papoulia), who poses as Malik’s mother on the plane.
Before being sent off, Malik helps Reda during a negotiation over stolen shoes with a local. “Don’t get used to stealing. Stealing is bad,” Reda tells the boy afterward, who he wishes to live a normal life free of pain. It’s a moment that speaks to the devastating loss of innocence for Palestinian children—something that follows Malik even after he has left the conflict and strife he experienced in Gaza, which connects him to the cousins. But despite the harsh conditions and morally gray decisions the characters make, Fleifel approaches this story with empathy and tender emotion, leading us to think about the dire circumstances that displaced Palestinians face while fleeing Gaza.
Fleifel infuses the film—which is dedicated to his Palestinian mother—with a raw, gritty tone, harkening back to films like Mikey and Nicky and the Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy. Director of photography Thodoris Mihopoulo, who previously collaborated with filmmakers Yorgos Lanthimos and Richard Linklater, chooses to linger on the characters in closed spaces, creating an unrivaled sense of intimacy and entrapment, with a few select shots of nature and the world around them speaking to the rarity of finding stillness.
Chatila and Reda act more as brothers than cousins, with Chatila often assuming the role of caretaker for the more naïve Reda, who is desperately trying to stay off heroin. During moments of heightened tension between the two, their relationship is revealed to be bound by shared circumstances, with Reda’s mother asking Chatila to look after her son, urging Chatila to let her know if he’s still using drugs. But it’s clear their bond goes deeper, which both Bakri and Sabbah portray through nuanced performances and genuine care for one another.
In a few scenes, Chatila and Reda think back on their time in Gaza, and the cafe they hope to open in a predominantly Arab neighborhood when they make their way to Germany. But as the two constantly find themselves on the move, developing new strategies for making money, there’s also a sense of the place around them falling away; Fleifel doesn’t tend to re-use locations, making it difficult for the audience to feel grounded.
Athens serves as a temporary place to simply pass through, not a final destination. A quote by Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said that opens the film speaks to this permeating feeling: “In a way, it’s sort of the fate of Palestinians, not to end up where they started, but somewhere unexpected and far away.”
To a Land Unknown is the latest Palestinian film to be given a theatrical run under the banner of Watermelon Pictures, which also released the Oscar-shortlisted From Ground Zero and groundbreaking documentary The Encampments. It’s yet another remarkable example of Palestinian art that deserves to be platformed and watched on the big screen. While the story does not directly take place in Gaza, each action the characters take serves as harrowing reminders of their displacement.