Born in the United Emirates to immigrant parents who fled the refugees camps in Lebanon in pursuit of a better life, first in the Gulf and then in Denmark, Mahdi Fleifel has spent the last 14 years making films about Palestinians seeking to go to Europe. His latest, To A Land Unknown, is competing in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. Fleifel spoke to The Film Verdict about his eleven-year journey to make the film, his inspiration from Palestinian literature, and the difficulty of making Palestinian films in general. Although he boasts a strong filmography, including one award-winning documentary and seven shorts which toured world festivals, Fleifel’s eyes were always on making fiction, and using his imagination to tell stories about exile.
The Film Verdict: Can you tell me about the genesis of To A Land Unknown? How did it all begin?
Mahdi Fleifel: I have been following young Palestinian men trying to leave the refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria and reach Greece to seek a future in Europe for the last 14 years, and about which I have made several documentaries. The journey started in 2010 when I made the documentary A World Not Ours (2012) after I finished film school. In it, I followed my lead character Abu Eyyad who was based in Ayn al-Hilweh camp [the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon] where my parents were born.
After the documentary, Abu Eyyad left for Greece. I went there and followed him, and a whole new world opened up for me. And I was fascinated by this. I was inspired by the novella Men In the Sun by Palestinian writer Ghasan Kanafani, which had a big impact on me growing up. And I felt this is exactly like what he portrayed when he wrote this novel in the 1960s, talking about Palestinians leaving their camp to seek a better life in the Gulf in Kuwait. And there they were stranded in the desert between Iraq and Kuwait. And I thought well, Athens is like the new desert, it’s an urban desert. For many years, I called the film Men in the Sun, as an inspiration and a working title.
TFV: After A World Not Ours, you made seven shorts about Palestinians in refugee camps and in exile in Europe. Was To A Land Unknown always the goal?
MF: I have made a successful documentary, so already I put myself in the category of documentary filmmaker, but I always thought of myself as a storyteller. I studied fiction in film school. The only reason I picked up documentary was because I was frustrated with the financing and all that. I wanted to go like a musician, go unplugged, you know, like pick up a camera and see where you can go.
That is how I ended up making documentaries, but my eyes were always on making fiction, using my imagination, telling stories that I kind of put together and based on my experiences but really trying to give something to the world, giving them the experience of exile.
TFV: What was the casting process like? Have you worked with actors who have the same experience of living in the camps in Lebanon and then arriving in Athens and wanting to go elsewhere?
MF: Not exactly. I really wanted to work with non-actors who had the refugee experience, but after some time it was proven technically and financially difficult, because Palestinians are scattered all over the world. So the two main characters, Mahmood Bakri and Aram Sabbah, are both Palestinian. One is a 48-Palestinian [Arab Palestinians living in Israel] and the other is from Ramallah. Aram has never acted before. I cast him three days before shooting. It was supposed to be another actor from Jordon. He was not allowed to get a visa. In desperation, we were brainstorming, and the sound recording team tells me “there is this guy Aram”. I had been lucky enough to meet Aram two years prior. He is a well-known skateboarder and a young film editor. I knew him and really liked his work, and I did a zoom call and auditioned him with Mahmoud who was already with us in Athens. It was a leap of faith that we basically jumped into and he proved to be brilliant. It took him a couple of days to find his rhythm with the crew and other cast members. I think he was a gift from above, just like many other things, happy accidents and coincidences that eventually helped us.
TFV: Were there any other accidents that turned into ‘gifts from above’ during the filming process?
MF: Yes, for example the boy [Mohammad Alsurafa], I wanted to get a child actor from Jordan and he also was not allowed a visa because he was a real refugee, and the authorities were worried that he might stay in Greece and seek asylum. So again we found a boy who was in Gaza. In my script, the character was a Palestinian kid from the camp in Lebanon. When I found out that this boy was actually from Gaza, the war had already kicked off, and I thought it makes perfect sense to actually stay true to who the kid is. So he was able to bring his own experience to it, and I think there were miracles made on the production side.
TFV: Are you concerned about even more lack of funding for Palestinian films and filmmakers, and films in general that are sympathetic to Palestinian voices, considering the crackdown on Palestinian voices in Europe and the U.S.?
MF: It was always difficult to get European money to tell our stories because that comes with a lot of ties. Europe has its own prism of what kind of stories they want to highlight. Making a film in exile about being exiled by exiles is almost impossible to finance. It was a lot of beg, borrow and steal private equity money. We really had to ask people for favours. I am Danish but I did not get any Danish funding. My producer is British, and he did not get any British money. So we made this film against all odds really. Any Palestinian film that gets made is a miracle, but it was really a miracle that we managed to do this one. It took me a little over eleven years, during which I built a body of work of seven shorts, but this film was always the carrot in front of the mule’s nose.
