Latest news with #Chatila
The Guardian
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
To a Land Unknown review – Palestinian migrants face tough choices in taut Athens-set thriller
Cousins Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah) don't have the luxury of morality. Undocumented Palestinian refugees living hand to mouth in Athens, they subsist on what they can scrape from petty crimes. Chatila has a plan – to save enough to reach Germany, where they will open a cafe. Reda, meanwhile, has a drug habit. Clean for a month, his addiction continues to get in the way of his view of the future. Clinging to his smarter, stronger cousin, Reda asks again to hear about the cafe, like a kid pleading for a bedtime story. When a scheme to make money backfires, Chatila snatches opportunity from the jaws of disappointment and comes up with a plan to earn enough to escape Athens. But it's a plan that comes with a considerable cost, both to the desperate victims Chatila plans to target and to the cousins, who have to live with themselves afterwards. Mahdi Fleifel's taut thriller, which plays out predominantly in Arabic and English, has something of the ragged outlaw urgency of Midnight Cowboy. The hard-scrabble gutter existence is vividly captured by a restless, questioning camera, but we learn the most from Bakri's superb performance, as he wrestles with guilt over what he has become. In UK and Irish cinemas
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Palestinian Refugee Drama ‘To a Land Unknown' Sells to 40 Territories Ahead of U.K., Ireland Release (EXCLUSIVE)
Paris- and Berlin-based sales and production house Salaud Morisset has sold Palestinian-Danish director Mahdi Fleifel's Palestinian refugee drama 'To a Land Unknown,' which premiered at Cannes Directors' Fortnight, to 40 territories. The film is released in the U.K. and Ireland on Friday. Salaud Morisset has signed new deals with Imovision (Brazil), Vertigo Media (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia), Joint Entertainment (Taiwan), Real Fiction (Germany), Five Stars (Ex Yugoslavia), Filmtrade (Greece), Filmladen (Austria), Filmin (Spain), Portugal (The Stone & The Plot) and Falcon Pictures (Indonesia). More from Variety Juliette Binoche to Preside Over 78th Cannes Film Festival Jury Cannes Film Festival President Iris Knobloch Re-Elected for Second Term 'Eat the Night' Review: A Dying MMORPG Evokes the Apocalypse in a Tender-Hearted Queer French Drama Previously announced deals include Conic (U.K.), Wildcard (Ireland), Eurozoom (France), Watermelon Pictures (U.S., Canada) and Film Clinic (Arab territories). 'To a Land Unknown' screened at more than 100 festivals including San Sebastian, Toronto, London, Thessaloniki, New Horizons and Sarajevo, and won more than 20 awards. The film tells the story of the desperate attempts of two Palestinian cousins stranded in Athens to find a way to reach Germany. Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. When Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan, which involves them posing as smugglers and taking hostages in an effort to get him and his best friend out of their hopeless environment before it is too late. 'To a Land Unknown' is produced by Geoff Arbourne at Inside Out Films, Fleifel's Nakba FilmWorks, Salaud Morisset, Maria Drandaki at Homemade Films, and Layla Meijman and Maarten van der Ven at Studio Ruba. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Grammy Predictions, From Beyoncé to Kendrick Lamar: Who Will Win? Who Should Win? What's Coming to Netflix in February 2025
