To a Land Unknown

2025 1h 46m EL

🙌

7.5

BANGER

🔥

98%

CERTIFIED FRESH

💯

METACRITIC

⭐

7.3

IMDB

★7.5TMDB · 11🍅98%Rotten Tomatoes●84Metacritic★7.3IMDB · 855

ThrillerCrime

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Cousins Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. When Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan to pose as smugglers in an attempt to get them out of their desperate situation before it is too late.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Mahmood Bakri
Chatila
Aram Sabbah
Reda
Angeliki Papoulia
Tatiana
Mohammad Alsurafa
Malik
Monzer Rayahneh
Marwan
Mouataz Alshaltouh
Abu Love
Mohammad Ghassan
Yasser
Manal Awad
Malik's Auntie

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Writers: Mahdi Fleifel, Fyzal Boulifa, Jason McColgan
Languages: Arabic, Greek, English
Countries: Greece, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Qatar

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released last year.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: Arabic, Greek, English.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 6 countries: Greece, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Qatar.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Mahdi Fleifel, shot by Thodoros Mihopoulos. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Nadah El Shazly. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Halim Sabbagh shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Mahmood Bakri and Aram Sabbah and Angeliki Papoulia carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt22023622 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Mahdi Fleifel directs. Thodoros Mihopoulos behind the camera. Nadah El Shazly scores. Halim Sabbagh cuts. Produced in Greece, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Qatar. Dialogue in Arabic, Greek, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released last year.
2Dialogue crosses 3 languages: Arabic, Greek, English.
3International production across 6 countries: Greece, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Qatar.
4Directed by Mahdi Fleifel, shot by Thodoros Mihopoulos. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Nadah El Shazly. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Halim Sabbagh shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Mahmood Bakri and Aram Sabbah and Angeliki Papoulia carry the top of the cast.
8IMDB entry: tt22023622 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Only 11 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
10Classified under 10 themes, including "palestine", "based on novel or book", "refugee", "athens, greece".

The technical file

Cinematography: Thodoros Mihopoulos
Original score: Nadah El Shazly
Editing: Halim Sabbagh
Costume design: Konstantina Mardiki
Runtime: 106 min · 1h 46m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Box office: $60,171
Original language: EL
Certification (US): R
IMDB: To a Land Unknown (2025)
Rotten Tomatoes: 98% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 84/100
IMDB rating: 7.3/10 · 855 votes

Awards

30 wins & 57 nominations total

Also by

Mahdi Fleifel

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-02-19
★ 7/10
“Chatila” (Mahmoud Bakri) and his cousin “Reda” (Aram Sabbah) are Palestinian refugees grifting in Athens trying to raise the cash to pay for some fake passports that will get them into Germany, where they hope to set up a family-run café. They engage in some petty larceny and the latter man turns a few tricks in the local park. With their goal in sight, though, “Reda” uses some of their stash to buy drugs from the untrustworthy “Abu Love” (Mouataz Alshaltouh) which causes friction between the pair but also inspires “Chatila” to concoct quite a cunning plan. They’ve befriended the young “Malik” (Mohammad Alsurata) whose aunt lives in Italy and so relying on new-found friend “Tatiana” (Angeliki Papoulia) - who actually has a valid ID card, they hope to provide their own people smuggling service to fund their own journey. This doesn’t quite go to plan, but suggests another - more hands on approach. With tensions mounting on the men and with “Reda” struggling to deal with the pressures of his drug addiction, is there any way for these two to make it to their dream land? Initially, there’s something of the loveable rogues about these two men as they try to accrue the money they need. They look after each other and even take the young lad under their wing. That changes, though, as their sense of desperation starts to grow. Pressure from families at home start to mount; both men realise that this is a process riddled with crookedness and untrustworthy people and surely it’s only a matter of time before the authorities cotton on. It’s that sense of tension that’s engagingly captured here by two actors who charismatically present flawed characters that even at their most devious, it’s hard not to sympathise with. It’s a testament to desperate times calling for desperate measures and uses a rather innovative narrative to illustrate the plight of illegal immigrants; of their ingenuity at finding ways around security arrangements and of just how perilous this whole process could be. There are plot holes, and some of the film doesn’t quite add up, but the gist provides for a point that’s well made and provides us with quite an human story of brotherhood that’s not without elements of plausible tragedy too.
Brent Marchant2025-07-18
★ 7/10
For those seeking sanctuary and the prospects of a better life, the hope of reaching a promised land holds an abiding attraction. That’s particularly true for those who are desperate to change their fates, and perhaps no one understands this better than refugees seeking to flee their circumstances. Unfortunately, that promise is often just that – a promise – and one that’s frequently and perpetually out of reach. Such are the conditions addressed in writer-director Mahdi Fleifel’s narrative feature debut, the story of Palestinian cousins Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), who, like many Middle Eastern migrants, have left behind their lives in Lebanese refugee camps for the hope of a better future in Europe. Their goal is to relocate to Germany, but, as with many of their peers, their journey stalls in Greece, the gateway to the heart of the continent and their eventual destination. The cousins lack the funds to pay smugglers for counterfeit documents and passage, so they live on the streets of Athens, struggling to find ways to get by, including theft, hustling and taking advantage of others. Their plight is a frustrating one, a scenario made more complicated by Reda’s on-again/off-again drug use, a condition that repeatedly results in financial fits and starts and growing anxiety over the duo’s inability to move forward. This, in turn, launches them into pursuing an array of increasingly dangerous schemes to fulfill their plans, but will these questionable ploys pan out? The film thus plumbs the desperation that they, like many refugees, often repeatedly experience, especially under present-day conditions. In doing so, the film earnestly evokes a profound degree of empathy for the characters’ exasperating circumstances and generally without judgment, outcomes made possible in large part by the compelling performances of the picture’s two leads. The mood underlying this story is further enhanced by its aptly employed grainy, suitably gritty 16mm cinematography, visually reinforcing the nature of everyday living experienced by the beleaguered protagonists. What’s more, this offering draws heavily from the narratives of “Midnight Cowboy” (1969) and “Casablanca” (1942), including many plot elements that pay fitting homages to these storied Oscar winners. However, for all its strengths, this release tends to meander at times, with some sequences that go insufficiently resolved and others that feel more than a little convoluted. Moreover, on occasion it feels as if the filmmaker was ambivalent about which storyline choices he wanted to make – those of a truly original cinematic tale or those of a picture aimed at giving well-intentioned but somewhat underdeveloped nods to the screen classics from which it derived much of its influence, resulting in something of a mixed bag. Those modest shortcomings aside, however, “To a Land Unknown” effectively provides viewers with a look inside a world that most of us never see but to which we seriously need to have our eyes opened.