REVIEW: Σε μια άγνωστη χώρα [To a Land Unknown] [2025]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 105 minutes
Release Date: March 20th, 2025 (Greece) / July 11th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Filmtrade / Watermelon Pictures
Director(s): Mahdi Fleifel
Writer(s): Mahdi Fleifel, Fyzal Boulifa & Jason McColgan

What do we have to lose anyway?

Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) and his cousin Reda’s (Aram Sabbah) plans to escape Athens for Germany so the former can extricate his wife and son from their Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon are constantly being thwarted. By bad actors. Bad luck. Bad decisions. Despite the world being out to get them and their own self-sabotage, however, they still have hope. Enough that Chatila vows to do whatever it takes, even by causing harm and worrying about repentance later. Reda, on the other hand, has already succumbed to the weight of that mounting cost. The burden is so heavy that he can’t stop himself from smiling about one such failure when his loss meant the friend who conned him won.

One could reduce this duo to a George and Lennie a la Of Mice and Men, but doing so would be a disservice to the nuanced story behind Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown. Co-written with Fyzal Boulifa and Jason McColgan, this central relationship is about more than just two men trying to survive hard times. There’s the political nature of them being Palestinians uprooted and exiled after their land was stolen. The fact they wouldn’t be out hustling and scamming if it weren’t for them not being allowed to go back home. And that violence forcing them to take risks, act out of character, and seek solace in alcohol or worse. Society and circumstances are what made Reda an unreliable addict. The desperation to protect his family is what made Chatila cruel.

So, we receive the two sides of this impossible scenario. There’s the distrusting Chatila looking out for his own in the knowledge that every other illegal refugee would do the same and the compassionate-to-a-fault Reda being ready to give the shirt off his back to a fellow compatriot in need. We see it when Reda notices a bottle of pills in the purse they stole and worries she might need them back. Or when thirteen-year-old Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa) crosses their path asking for somewhere to sleep. And there’s Chatila with eyes open and head on a swivel, scoping out new targets and watching his back against those who trying to make him theirs. He’s not about giving charity. Not when nobody ever gave him any.

No, Chatila sees everyone for who they are. Marwan (Munther Reyahneh), a Palestinian fixer with connections to forged documents and coyotes for an expensive price, is an opportunistic businessman out for himself regardless of also being a man of his word. Abu Love (Mouataz Alshaltouh), a self-proclaimed poet the other Palestinians in their squat enjoy having around due to his affable demeanor and drug supply, is a leech feeding off others’ sorrows to escape his own. Even Greek native Tatiana (Angeliki Papoulia), a local drunk who lives by the park where they hang out during the day, is a woman seeking a mark for companionship and thus a potential mark to be used by him. They’re each a means to an end. Stepping stones to a dream that feels less real every day.

Chatila is a shrewd strategist. He knows how to get those people to do his bidding and exactly when to cut them loose before they have the ability to demand retribution. That includes his cousin too. Add an altruistic purpose to the task at-hand and Reda will fall in line. Do it for Chatila’s wife and son. Definitely. Use this person to help Malik in a way that helps the two of them more? Sign him up. Add kidnapping and extorting fellow displaced Arabs seeking the same human decency as him? Okay … if there’s no alternative. What Chatila doesn’t realize, however, is that not everyone is built like him and Marwan. Not everyone can carry the guilt and justify the gradual dissolution of their soul. Telling Reda “one more day” won’t calm him. It’ll only increase his fear.

That’s why every new roadblock or tragedy Fleifel introduces unfolds with the utmost authenticity. This isn’t a script that feels manipulative. I never found myself rolling my eyes that a character made the worst decision possible because the existence the international community has forced upon Chatila and Reda doesn’t possess anything but bad decisions. As soon as you make one, the only way out is to make another. And they just get worse as they compound. More dangerous. More damaging. More unforgivable. Chatila has his family to hold onto and push him forward. Reda only has the promise of being able to make up for all the heinous things he’s done in pursuit of that opportunity. So, of course he’ll seek to numb himself. Of course he’ll put their shared salvation at risk.

Sabbah’s performance is the linchpin as a result. He’s the film’s moral compass and his cousin’s weakest link. But he’s also a big reason Chatila does everything he does. Protecting Reda is an extension of protecting his wife and son and the wholesomeness that Sabbah exudes is a crucial part to Chatila’s own need for forgiveness. Bakri’s portrayal is so hardened and myopic that we know his character believes there may be no turning back for himself. Chatila has no future without Reda’s innocence because he’s already sacrificed his own. They either do this together or not at all because there must be a point to the suffering they caused and the suffering they’ve endured. It cannot be for nothing. And yet, for far too many, that’s invariably exactly how it ends up.