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Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Review: ‘To a Land Unknown' an absorbing refugee crisis drama
Review: 'To a Land Unknown' an absorbing refugee crisis drama Sitting on an Athens park bench with their skateboards, with pigeons scouring the ground for food at their feet, the cousins at the heart of 'To a Land Unknown' scan their surroundings for their next target. They need money, badly. They need a purse to steal. Palestinian refugees, Chatila and his younger cousin Reda have been stranded here a while. Chatila's wife and 2-year-old son, stuck in their own limbo in a Lebanese refugee camp, live with uncertain hopes of meeting up with the cousins in Germany. This is the universal lament and staggering human cost of refugee displacement, dramatized in Danish-Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel's tense, coolly heartbreaking debut narrative feature. 'To a Land Unknown' focuses on these loving, sometimes hating cousins, who dream of opening a cafe in their chosen land unknown. Realizing this dream will require a series of anxious gambles and bargains with their lives, and the lives of others. It's an existence balanced between 'what is and what must be,' as another refugee says, quoting 'Praise for the High Shadow' by Mahmoud Darwish. That's the poetry; Fleifel's film favors well-paced if slightly schematic prose, though the actors are more than good enough to keep you with these people every fraught minute. It's a movie of many deadlines. The first is the two weeks that the cagey, quietly ruthless Chatila has to secure fake passports for himself and the softer-hearted addict Reda. Early in the story, the cousins encounter 13-year-old Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa), a Gazan refugee whose human trafficker, he tells the men, dumped him in Greece instead of reuniting him with his mother, now living in Italy. Everyone in 'To a Land Unknown' seeks some distant shore they can call home, with the promise of reminding them, in some way, of three simple words heard at the very end of the story: 'the old neighborhood.' Chatila's the emergent protagonist in the script by Fyzal Boulifa, Jason McColgan and director Fleifel, and in the compelling, un-showy performance by Mahmoud Bakri, the story's escalating tensions never feel actor-engineered. Cousin Reda, whom Chatila patronizes one minute and loves like a brother the next, may well be the biggest obstacle to a further shore. Aram Sabbah makes this sweet, lost soul a dimensional presence. Much of 'To a Land Unknown' deals with the cousins' entry into human trafficking, by way of the hard-drinking Greek national Tatiana (Angeliki Papoulia, 'Dogtooth') who becomes Chatila's lover. She's lured, with a promise of pay, into posing as the orphan's mother, accompanying him to Italy. It's a long shot. But it might get the cousins where they're headed, in Germany (a proper European nation, argues Chatila). There are only so many ways 'To a Land Unknown' can conclude its storytelling business and not sell itself short, along with the omnipresent refugee crisis stories we live every minute on this planet. Yet the co-writer and director, who earliest years in a Lebanese refugee camp are the subject of his 2012 documentary 'A World Not Ours,' knows where he's going. The focus tightens ever more effectively on two ordinary men, searching, yearning, stealing, surviving however — and if — they can. ——— 'TO A LAND UNKNOWN' (In Arabic, Greek and English with English subtitles) 3 stars (out of 4) No MPA rating (language, sexuality, some violence) Running time: 1:45 How to watch: Now in theaters ——— Solve the daily Crossword
CairoScene
21-07-2025
- Sport
- CairoScene
From El-Gamaliya to the Olympics: The Story of Boxer Mohamed Reda
From El-Gamaliya to the Olympics: The Story of Boxer Mohamed Reda From Cairo's backstreets to the Olympics in Athens, Mohamed Reda opens up about discipline, family, and the academy where he now trains a new generation to dream with grit. Here is a conversation with Olympic boxer Mohamed Reda, written by someone whose dad has been telling this story for years... Growing up, my dad never ran out of stories about school pranks, scraped report cards, and friends who became family. But one story always stood out. He had a friend, a real friend, who went on to become an Olympic silver medallist in boxing. The guy's name was Mohamed Reda. For years, I thought the story might be exaggerated, until I looked him up and found out he's real, he's famous, and he runs a professional boxing academy in Cairo. And eventually, I got the chance to sit with him for an interview. My dad was probably more excited than Reda himself when I told him. Reda welcomed me with the same calm energy that has shaped his whole career. 'I'm a son of El-Gamaliya, Haret El-Maghrabaleen, to be specific,' he said. 'That neighbourhood taught me that being a man doesn't come from how you look. It's how you carry yourself. People there helped each other just because it was the right thing to do. That's what I grew up around. That's what shaped me.' He grinned. 'Also, I still remember that foul cart on the corner. Mornings with foul and chilli oil… nothing like it.' His entry into boxing wasn't really planned. 'It looked like a coincidence. My coach lived in our neighbourhood and wanted to do my dad a favour. But the moment I put those gloves on, something clicked. I felt like I'd found something I didn't know I was looking for.' Reda still remembers the first real match. The nerves, the smell of sweat, the shouting coach, the shaky legs. 'It was at Darb Al-Ahmar Club, my first championship. Everything about that day stayed with me. That was the first time I felt like I'd started writing my name in the sport.' He's worn gloves with the Egyptian flag stitched into them. When I asked what that meant, his answer was simple. 'Every time I put them on, I felt the weight of the country. You carry more than your own goals. It's an honour. A responsibility.' In 2004, he won silver for Egypt in the Athens Olympics. We chatted a lot about it, but what really stood out to me was him saying, 'People see the medal. What they don't see is the years of training, the injuries, the days I went to bed hungry, the nights I was in pain. They don't see what you give up. You miss moments with people you love because you believe in something no one else can see yet.' After Athens, everything changed - and didn't. 'People started calling me a star,' he said. 'But I stayed Mohamed from El-Gamaliya. What changed was the responsibility. What didn't change was my faith in God, my respect for my parents… and my love for foul with chilli oil.' Despite offers to go pro in Europe and the US, Reda chose to stay. 'I had an eye issue. And more than that, I wanted to set an example. I wanted to build something here. Not everything is about the money.' Instead, he built a boxing academy, which was the next step in a lifelong goal. 'I wanted to train my son differently from how I was trained. I stopped competing, but I didn't stop dreaming. The academy became that dream, a place to shape people as much as athletes.' The lessons go beyond the ring. 'Victory's great,' he said. 'But what really matters is consistency. Show up when you're tired. Respect your opponent. Respect yourself.' He sees parts of himself in the new generation. What surprises him most is how quickly they grow. 'This generation? They've got energy. They've got guts. All they need is someone to steer them.' Over the last few years, more women have joined the sport. For Reda, this was an opportunity to evolve his training. 'I started listening more. Every girl has her own story. Boxing, for some, carries the weight of protection, the spark of confidence, and the breath of freedom beyond the sport alone. We adjusted our training to focus on skill, self-defence and respect.' The academy now offers sessions exclusively for women. The experience has changed him as much as it's changed them. 'Give a girl a safe environment, and she'll surprise you. That's what I've seen. Greatness comes from will; gender has nothing to do with it. Every time one of them pushes through fear, she teaches me something new.' When I asked about a moment from his career that stayed with him - even though it never made the headlines - he didn't hesitate. 'After losing a championship, I came home feeling like I wasn't cut out for it any more. I told myself I was done. But when I walked in and saw my wife's eyes, she didn't say a word, but the belief she had in me… that's what brought me back. No one wrote about that. But that moment made me a champion.'When I asked Reda about his definition of strength or power, he answered, 'Strength is getting back up when you fall. It's staying calm when someone tries to get under your skin. It's holding onto your humanity when things get tough. The real strength? It's in your heart and your head, not in your gloves.' Before I left, I asked what he hoped kids would take from his story. 'I hope they see that champions rise through what they build, step by step. Built from every tough moment, every 'I can't' that turns into 'I did.' Boxing is a big school. It teaches you to face yourself. And if you've got a dream - any dream - you've got to believe it can happen. There's always room for another Mohamed Reda.' After the interview, I called my dad to tell him how it went. He said, 'I told you he was the real deal.' And honestly? He really is.
Chicago Tribune
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘To a Land Unknown' at Facets is an absorbing refugee crisis drama
Sitting on an Athens park bench with their skateboards, with pigeons scouring the ground for food at their feet, the cousins at the heart of 'To a Land Unknown' scan their surroundings for their next target. They need money, badly. They need a purse to steal. Palestinian refugees, Chatila and his younger cousin Reda have been stranded here a while. Chatila's wife and two-year-old son, stuck in their own limbo in a Lebanese refugee camp, live with uncertain hopes of meeting up with the cousins in Germany. This is the universal lament and staggering human cost of refugee displacement, dramatized in Danish-Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel's tense, coolly heartbreaking debut narrative feature. 'To a Land Unknown,' premiering this week at Facets Film Forum, focuses on these loving, sometimes hating cousins, who dream of opening a cafe in their chosen land unknown. Realizing this dream will require a series of anxious gambles and bargains with their lives, and the lives of others. It's an existence balanced between 'what is and what must be,' as another refugee says, quoting 'Praise for the High Shadow' by Mahmoud Darwish. That's the poetry; Fleifel's film favors well-paced if slightly schematic prose, though the actors are more than good enough to keep you with these people every fraught minute. It's a movie of many deadlines. The first is the two weeks that the cagey, quietly ruthless Chatila has to secure fake passports for himself and the softer-hearted addict Reda. Early in the story, the cousins encounter 13-year-old Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa), a Gazan refugee whose human trafficker, he tells the men, dumped him in Greece instead of reuniting him with his mother, now living in Italy. Everyone in 'To a Land Unknown' seeks some distant shore they can call home, with the promise of reminding them, in some way, of three simple words heard at the very end of the story: 'the old neighborhood.' Chatila's the emergent protagonist in the script by Fyzal Boulifa, Jason McColgan and director Fleifel, and in the compelling, un-showy performance by Mahmoud Bakri, the story's escalating tensions never feel actor-engineered. Cousin Reda, whom Chatila patronizes one minute and loves like a brother the next, may well be the biggest obstacle to a further shore. Aram Sabbah makes this sweet, lost soul a dimensional presence. Much of 'To a Land Unknown' deals with the cousins' entry into human trafficking, by way of the hard-drinking Greek national Tatiana (Angeliki Papoulia, 'Dogtooth') who becomes Chatila's lover. She's lured, with a promise of pay, into posing as the orphan's mother, accompanying him to Italy. It's a long shot. But it might get the cousins where they're headed, in Germany (a proper European nation, argues Chatila). There are only so many ways 'To a Land Unknown' can conclude its storytelling business and not sell itself short, along with the omnipresent refugee crisis stories we live every minute on this planet. Yet the co-writer and director, who earliest years in a Lebanese refugee camp are the subject of his 2012 documentary 'A World Not Ours,' knows where he's going. The focus tightens ever more effectively on two ordinary men, searching, yearning, stealing, surviving however — and if — they can. 'To a Land Unknown' — 3 stars (out of 4) No MPA rating (language, sexuality, some violence) Running time: 1:46 How to watch: Chicago premiere at Facets Film Forum, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave.; 3 and 5 p.m. Sat. July 19; 1 and 3 p.m. Sun. July 20; 7 p.m. Thurs. July 24. In Arabic, Greek and English with English subtitles.
Washington Post
18-07-2025
- Washington Post
In ‘To a Land Unknown,' a new lens on the timeless story of migration
Chatila and Reda are cousins, living a limbo existence in Athens, where they have escaped life in a Palestinian refugee camp and where they await passage to Germany. Their dreams are to open a cafe, where the two young men will be joined by Chatila's wife and son. In the meantime, they have been scraping together money for forged passports, their fates resting on their own wits, resourcefulness and ability to dodge the predators lurking around every corner, eager to take advantage of people who, on paper at least, have no claim to exist.
New York Post
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Popular DJ who vanished 3 weeks ago ID'd as man found dead on NYC houseboat: sources
A popular Big Apple DJ who mysteriously vanished three weeks ago has been identified by sources as the man discovered dead on a houseboat in Queens. Reda Briki, 52, was found unconscious and unresponsive by an acquaintance in the cabin of a boat docked at Railroad and Greenpoint avenues in Newton Creek Marina Sunday afternoon, sources said. The electronic dance music producer, who co-founded Love that Fever, was pronounced dead at the scene, though friends – who launched an exhaustive search after he was last seen on June 14 – believe he died weeks ago. Advertisement 3 DJ Reda Briki seated on an ornate chair. DJ Reda Briki/Facebook 'We are heartbroken to share that Reda Briki passed away in June 2025,' friend Tim Fielding wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday, remembering the musicians 'multiple talents, positive attitude, amazing skillset and cheeky humor.' 'This news may come as a shock, and we know Reda meant many things to many people – a friend, a brother, a fellow creative spirit. He had a wild and beautiful energy, and he moved through the world in his own unique way. He made a lot of people happy with his music,' he continued. Advertisement 'On a personal note, it was just 5 weeks ago he was with me, rocking in a festival in Devon, taking people on a deep tribal house journey, living his best life. Gone too soon. Safe travels back to the music, brother. RIP.' Briki may have died about a week before his decomposed corpse was discovered, sources said, adding that he suffered no apparent signs of trauma and is not immediately believed to be the victim of a crime. 3 The 52-year-old DJ was discovered unconscious and unresponsive on board a docked boat. Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto/Shutterstock The Medical Examiner's office did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment. Advertisement For nearly three weeks, friends and fans plastered fliers and flooded social media in a desperate effort to find Briki, who they said was last seen DJing at Maison Harlem, a French bistro in West Harlem. Briki, who hailed from the French Algiers, was widely regarded as a trailblazer of electronic dance music during his nearly 20 years in the business, according to his website. 3 DJ Reda Briki was last seen on June 14, according to missing posters plastered on social media. DJ Reda Briki/Facebook 'Originally from French Algiers but coming of age in Parisian club culture, Reda was surrounded by a world of rich electric influences of tribal percussion, pumping rhythms, pulsing beats and thumping grooves,' his bio says. Advertisement 'This rich exposure laid the groundwork for Reda's fervent pursuit of making house music his lifelong calling. With over 18 years behind the decks, Reda's powerful skill for pushing musical boundaries has become known through his original music and event productions.' Sunday's discovery marks the fourth body recovered from Newton Creek in the last two years. Police, who have not publicly identified Briki, said the investigation is ongoing.
