Saturday, March 15 / 6:30 pm / Ottawa Art Gallery

Program: Short Film (TBA), To a Land Unknown

Feature presentation \

Finding themselves stuck in a nondescript, noisy neighbourhood in Athens, cousins Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah) are endlessly plotting their escape. Having recently arrived from a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, the two are searching for stability in a life in which all they’ve ever known is uncertainty and displacement. To save money for fake passports in order to get to Germany (where Chatila dreams of opening a café), they commit petty crimes, pursue paltry scams, and generally street hustle. Things change dramatically, however, when Chatila discovers that Reda has secretly spent their savings on his opiate addiction. Ever more desperate, Chatila now engineers a dangerous heist that will have them posing as smugglers, but can it possibly succeed? A powerful story of loyalty and a search for belonging, To A Land Unknown boasts a superb cast and an urgent, immediate realist style. An official selection at the prestigious Directors Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival.

- Tom McSorley

“This Palestinian twist on Midnight Cowboy is full of masterful storytelling and wrenching humanity. To A Land Unknown is a social realist drama buoyed by two gorgeous central performances, a nuanced portrait of a mercurial male relationship told with assurance and steel. This is a tour-de-force of empathic storytelling, with its genre narrative bursting with an overabundance of humanity.”

- Sophie Monks Kaufman, Indiewire

Short film \

To be announced

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2024 / - minutes / -
Director: -
Language: -

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