To a Land Unknown takes a timely look at what happens when people have nothing left to lose, at VIFF Centre from July 18 to 24
Filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel’s compelling portrait of two Palestinian refugees trying to escape hardscrabble limbo in an unrecognizable Athens
To a Land Unknown.
The VIFF Centre screens To a Land Unknown from July 18 to 24
PALESTINIAN-DANISH DIRECTOR Mahdi Fleifel’s compelling and strikingly shot To a Land Unknown takes place in Athens, but it’s not the city familiar to anyone who’s visited the Greek capital as a tourist.
Instead, the two Palestinian refugees at the film’s centre inhabit garbage-strewn parks, crowded streets, and a graffiti-covered squat where fellow outsiders sit around a bonfire on discarded chairs. They are caught in a hellish limbo: they can’t return to their homeland, but they can’t reach a new one either—and as at least one scene suggests, visiting the Acropolis is the farthest thing from their minds.
The film opens on Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), skateboards in hand, running a bait-and-switch theft of an old woman’s purse in a local square. But we immediately see that they have hearts: the more sensitive Reda worries that there’s medication in the bag that he should return. Eventually, they will step in to help an orphaned 13-year-old arrival from Gaza to try to escape to Italy.
But hardened by the need to eat and dreams of resettling and opening a café in Germany, they’ve learned to do whatever it takes to survive—whether by selling their bodies, stealing from running-shoe stores, or, as the film takes a darker turn, pulling a violent scam over on some Syrian refugees.
Remarkable for a film shot basically on the fly, To a Land Unknown gets at big, urgent ideas about what happens when people have nothing more to lose—and make no mistake, there are thousands of young men like Chatila and Reda living on the fringes of cities all over the world right now. At the same time, thanks to the two indelible lead characters—the hard-nosed, ever-scheming Chatila and the tormented, homesick Reda, exchanging glances that communicate entire worlds—the film humanizes their struggle. You can feel the pair trying to hold on to their deep sense of brotherhood in a dehumanizing world—and this haunting slice of reality is so compelling, with stakes so high and heartfelt, that you may find yourself holding your breath throughout. 
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