24/05/2024 - CANNES 2024: The Palestinian-Danish director takes on the melancholy of exile as two Palestinian cousins get stranded in Greece

Two Palestinian cousins (Mahmood Bakri and Aram Sabbah) flee To a Land Unknown [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mahdi Fleifel
film profile] in Mahdi Fleifel’s unusual buddy movie, playing in the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. But before they can reach it, they are stranded in Greece, and becoming more and more desperate. Until they come up with a plan.

Cineuropa: Your film is more serious than the usual examples of it, but did you see this story as a “buddy movie”? They find comfort in each other.
Mahdi Fleifel: I’m glad you picked up on this because I’m a big fan of that genre. As a child of the 1980s, I devoured those films: 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Midnight Run, Dog Day Afternoon. Throughout my film school, most of my work was in that genre, and now, I really wanted to push it even further. I would say it’s a buddy movie first, then a story of friendship and, at its core, a film about exiles.

On the Directors’ Fortnight website, I noticed the mention of Midnight Cowboy as well. Two men, unlikely friends, stuck in limbo again. Why is this dynamic interesting to you?
To be honest, Midnight Cowboy only surfaced when we were in pre-production. It was a subconscious reference, if you will, something I never intended. In the script, they were supposed to be in a taxi, but because it wasn’t visually interesting – and we couldn’t fit the camera in easily – we opted for a bus. As for their dynamic, it’s always fascinating to put such opposing characters side by side. I have always seen Chatila and Reda as two sides of the same person.

You talk about loneliness here. It’s everywhere, even in dreams about a cafe where “every story from the neighbourhood was discussed”. There is a lot of melancholy.
It’s the melancholy and the longing of exile. You know, exiles are always longing for what “non-exiles” have: a homeland, a sense of fellowship, an army to protect you. At the same time, exile itself is a sort of spiritual malady. It’s the eternal longing for something that is unattainable. For these guys, having a place of their own, even a small cafe, would mean carving out a small territory, a piece of land of their own – also for fellow compatriots. This is a place for the people who have no place.

You show what awaits them: loneliness, as we discussed, restlessness, and even drugs and prostitution. How dark were you willing to go?
All of my characters are born of my previous documentary work: encounters with fellow exiles, Palestinian refugees who were stranded in Greece. I’m always intrigued by what it means to have no place where you belong, no sense of identity, and what it means to be completely expelled from the world. There is always this haunting question: what would it be like if my parents had never left the refugee camp and made the crazy and courageous decision to migrate to Scandinavia? Where would I be today, how would I live my life as a stateless Palestinian? It’s something I have always felt compelled to question.

Exactly – you have experienced so much, and maybe it makes you want to talk about people who don’t have a home.
Of course. Though my parents were born in a refugee camp, I was luckier to be born in a more privileged place like Dubai. Now, I’m what you could call a “privileged refugee”, because I have a European passport. I can travel the world without being stopped at checkpoints or turned away from borders. Still, I’m always drawn to the stories of the wanderers, people who roam the Earth with no place to go. That’s really the recurring theme in all of my films.

I think yours is the only Palestinian film at Cannes this year. If you are comfortable discussing it, does it make you feel any extra pressure?
Any film that gets made is a sort of miracle, and any Palestinian film that gets made – and manifested in the world – is a miracle 100 times over. The fact that we get a platform at Cannes, the global stage of cinema, is a great start. I just hope this enables us to reach a wider audience. Given what’s happening in Palestine, I really think it’s important our stories are heard.

I was surprised that your movie featured humour and silliness. Was it easy to “inject” all of this into the story?
It was natural. They say comedy is “tragedy plus time”, and given that the Palestinian people have now been living through this ongoing tragedy for the past 76 years, I think it has become a form of survival. Humour is inherent in our culture. In fact, our humour is very similar to Jewish humour.