18th Arab Film Festival

Saturday, September 28 at 7pm

ABOUT THE FILM

After fleeing a camp in Lebanon, two Palestinian cousins––Chatila and Reda––are stranded in Athens, living in an underground limbo. Desperately seeking a way to reach Germany, they find themselves caught in an uncontrollable spiral. As they save to pay for fake passports, Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his dangerous drug addiction. In response, Chatila hatches an extreme plan for their escape, which involves posing as smugglers and taking hostages. Nourished by New York cinema (notably Midnight Cowboy), To a Land Unknown races along like an edgy thriller, tragic but stripped back. A compelling, uncompromising and nuanced look at the living conditions of migrants.

FILMMAKER BIO

Filmmaker bio: Mahdi Fleifel is a Palestinian-Danish director who graduated from NFTS in the UK. In 2012, his first feature-length documentary A World Not Ours premiered at TIFF and gathered around thirty awards (Berlinale, CPH:DOX, Yamagata, DOC:NYC). He took part in the Cinéfondation in 2013, and subsequently directed several short films.

PRESENTED BY MIZNA

Celebrating 25 years in 2024, Mizna is a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production centering the work of Arab and Southwest Asian and North African artists. For more than twenty years, we have been creating a decolonized cultural space to reflect the expansiveness of our community and to foster exchange, examine ideas, and engage audiences in meaningful art.