DUBAI: Four years ago, Syrian filmmaker Ameer Fakher Eldin set out to craft a cinematic trilogy about exile — not as an abstract theme, but as a visceral, lived reality: from being a stranger among your own people, to becoming a stranger among others, and ultimately, to imagining a life unhindered by the limitations of national borders.
The first chapter, “The Stranger,” introduced us to Adnan, an unlicensed doctor lingering in a liminal space in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights. The opening lines hinted at the trilogy’s ambition. Standing pensively by a window, Adnan is addressed by his off-screen wife, who lists the options before them: “France? Paris… they have delicious bread. Germany? Anywhere far from here.”
Ameer Fakher Eldin at the Amman International Film Festival in July 2022. (AFP)
The film, which Fakher Eldin wrote, directed, and edited, would go on to represent Palestine at the Academy Awards — a decision he describes as an “incredible gesture” and a “beautiful, warm embrace” from a fellow occupied people. “Perhaps it’s a different type of occupation (to the Golan Heights). We don’t have the daily clashes, but occupation still runs in the waters,” he says.
Now Germany has become the setting for his trilogy’s second chapter “Yunan.” Having premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where it competed for the highest prize, it is currently touring the festival circuit, building on the critical momentum of “The Stranger.”
A still from ‘Yunan.’ (Courtesy of Red Balloon Film GmBH, Productions Microclimat Inc, Intramovies Srl)
“Yunan” explores the emotional journey of Munir (played by Lebanese actor Georges Khabbaz), a Syrian writer living in exile in Germany. Burdened by the psychological toll of displacement, he travels to the Halligen, a series of low-lying islands off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein, where he contemplates suicide. One of the director’s early inspirations was the suicide note of Stefan Zweig, a Jewish writer who fled Austria and Nazi persecution in the 1930s. Eventually settling in Brazil, he took his own life alongside his second wife, Lotte Altmann, having been left bereft by exile, the loss of his homeland, and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
“The character of Munir emerged from a deep exploration of the human condition,” says Fakher Eldin, who was born in Kyiv but grew up in the Golan Heights. “I wanted to explore this quiet battle that we face within ourselves. Since I come from the occupied Golan Heights, I grew up in exile without being forced to leave. I didn’t flee because of war or a national crisis — the border was displaced, leaving me displaced. I don’t know Syria. I can’t go to Syria. So I was left waiting for — or fantasizing about the idea of — a homeland.”
As the filmmaker points out, much has been written about the odyssey of being a refugee — the danger, the despair, the journey itself. But what of being displaced?
“The time has come for us to look at what happens after,” he says. “This is no less important. My approach was to try to anatomize the mind of the displaced person. I entered this world by connecting to the universal aspects of loss and disillusionment and the search for meaning.”
It was during the initial stages of exploring these themes that he came across the Halligen and the phenomenon known as ‘land unter’ (land under), when the islands are submerged by the sea. Only a handful of man-made mounds topped with farmhouses remain above the water, enabling life to continue after the sea has receded. Metaphorically, land under came to reflect the structure of Yunan – that of submersion, loss, and return.
“I went to this hallig for two years while writing, getting to know the people and the culture, and I heard, of course, about the flooding,” says Fakher Eldin, who has lived in Germany for the past four years. “I asked them: ‘When does this happen? Please tell me, because I want to be here.’” He was told it could occur once a year, 20 times a year, or not at all. Most likely, however, such an event would take place between January and March.
The team visited during those months but nothing happened. Fakher Eldin decided to use visual effects instead, working with a post-production studio in Canada to create the film’s flood scenes. Then, in October, they headed back to the island for a three-week shoot. On the fourth day, a strong wind began to batter the island.
“Not every wind makes a land under. It has to be strong enough, but also blowing in a certain direction, because not every wind moves the water with the tide. But that one was just right,” he says, calling the wind’s arrival “divine intervention.” He made a quick decision: he took a small team, a camera, and Khabbaz to one of the elevated farmhouses.
“I remember standing next to the oldest man in the house, an 85-year-old, who was learning into the wind in the classic style. I said to him, ‘Do you at least know from which direction the sea will come?’ I didn’t want to just shoot from the house, I wanted to get intimate with the water, because it’s a character in the film. I wanted people to see that it was coming.”
The speed of the event gave Fakher Eldin no time for preparation. “It’s not something you can think of before, because you haven’t experienced such a thing,” he explains. “We had 20 minutes because it was so fast. From the moment the water crossed the barrier of the shore until it reached four meters high, it felt like magic, but also incredibly dangerous. I had to direct in real time — that was a challenge. But everything you see in the film is real.”
“Yunan,” which received support from the Red Sea Fund and the Red Sea Souk, will have its Arab premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival in December. It will then go on general release across the Arab world. Although Fakher Eldin is currently concentrating on “Yunan,” he has completed writing the third and final instalment, tentatively called “Nostalgia: A Tale in First Chapters.” The film will tell the story of a renowned Arab opera singer who suddenly loses his voice and returns to the Golan Heights to convalesce.
“This has brought me a lot of joy,” says Fakher Eldin of his Red Sea funding. “Especially with coming from the Golan Heights, where I was cut off from my culture. I can’t go to Syria, I can’t go to Lebanon, I can’t go anywhere in the Arab world. I’m exiled in my own home. But now I’m making films with all of the Arab world. It’s not only Saudi, it’s Jordan, Palestine, Qatar… It’s like all the Arab countries are part of my creation.”
Importantly, the director has refused Israeli funding, thereby safeguarding the identity of his films. That refusal is not just political but deeply personal — rooted in a lifelong resistance to imposed narratives and erasures.
“They will never say I’m Syrian. They will only say I’m a Druze filmmaker, which is something they do to distinguish Druze from Arab, which is total nonsense. But this is what happens in Israeli media and in daily life,” he says. “That’s how they like to separate. I refuse to live under an authority that wants to erase my identity.”
