{"id":37348,"date":"2025-06-13T08:35:58","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T06:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=37348"},"modified":"2025-06-13T13:56:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T11:56:55","slug":"from-a-world-not-ours-to-a-land-unknown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/from-a-world-not-ours-to-a-land-unknown\/","title":{"rendered":"From A World Not Ours to a Land Unknown<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
To a Land Unknown<\/em>, Mahdi Fleifel\u2019s devastating fiction debut, provides a masterful bookend to his first feature-length documentary, A World Not Ours<\/em>, on growing up in the Palestinian refugee camp Ain el-Hilweh.\"\"<\/h5>\n

Jim Quilty<\/h4>\n

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There is a much-loved phrase among screenwriters, tossed off at pivotal moments by action heroes and wretched victims alike: \u201cWhat have we got to lose?\u201d In To a Land Unknown<\/em>, Mahdi Fleifel\u2019s first feature-length fiction, it has particular resonance.<\/p>\n

The film tells the story of Shatila and Reda, who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon and are desperate to make a new life in Germany. Like many young men forced to emigrate to Europe informally, the cousins get stuck in Athens, sleeping in a flophouse packed with undocumented migrants. They survive on whatever money they can scrape together from petty crime and prostitution, saving up to secure fake passports so they can slip into Germany.<\/p>\n

As the early sequences reveal, the two are unquestionably moral individuals, though of differing character. A skater who takes his board wherever he goes, Reda (Aram Sabbah) is relaxed and soft-hearted. Shatila (Mahmood Bakri) is intense and focused, hoping to eventually emulate his father\u2019s success as a caf\u00e9 owner. Impatient to reunite with the young wife and infant son he left behind in the camp, he\u2019s the one tasked with managing the duo\u2019s cash and is the brains behind their efforts to raise the money they need. The agony of their predicament affects the two men differently: Reda is prone to depression and has a history of drug abuse (rife among becalmed urban men, including those stranded in refugee camps and informal migrant gatherings), which may be why his previous sojourn in Athens ended with his humiliating return to the camp he had escaped. After they lose their savings, Shatila becomes more ruthless. Reda struggles to keep up.<\/p>\n

To a Land Unknown<\/em> implicitly asks: When you\u2019ve already lost everything, what have you got to lose? The answer that unfurls over the film\u2019s unremitting 100-odd minutes is devastating in its precision and veracity.<\/p>\n

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