INTERVIEW: Ameer Fakher Eldin on trauma of exile and meaning of home in his film Yunan
In this Ahram Online interview, Syrian filmmaker Ameer Fakher Eldin speaks about Yunan, his award-winning second feature narrating a story of displacement, exile, and nostalgia.
Fakher Eldin - a writer and filmmaker born in Kyiv in 1991 to Syrian parents from the occupied Golan Heights and currently based in Hamburg - tells the story of Munir, an Arab poet journeying to a remote island to end his life, haunted by his past and trapped within his imagination, accompanied only by an old story told by his mother.
Yunan, which premiered at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale13-23 February), competed for and won the festival's highest awards, the Silver Bear and the Golden Bear.
However, Munir encounters the enigmatic Valeska and her rough, loyal son Karl on the island. Their simple acts of kindness help him overcome his pains and reawaken his desire to live.
The film features Lebanese actor and filmmaker George Khabbaz as Munir, alongside German cinema icon Hanna Schygulla as Valeska.
Palestinian actor Ali Suleiman, known for Paradise Now, plays the Shepherd, while Game of Thrones' Sibel Kekilli portrays the shepherd's wife. Nidal al-Achkar plays Munir's mother.
Written, directed, and edited by Fakher Eldin, Yunan was co-produced by groups in Germany, Canada, Italy, Palestine, Qatar, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.
In a poetic cinematic style, Fakher Eldin reflects on the meanings of home and belonging, a theme he began exploring in his award-winning 2021 debut feature The Stranger.
The Stranger - the first in Fakher Eldin's planned trilogy Homeland, and the prelude to Yunan - premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival and won two awards at the Cairo International Film Festival: the Shadi Abdel-Salam Award for Best Film in the Critics' Week Competition and Best Arab Film.
"The idea of the trilogy began with me contemplating the concept of home,' Fakher Eldin told Ahram Online.
'What is home? Is it where we used to live in the past, or is it related to the future? Since my origins are from the occupied Syrian Golan, I don't really know my homeland. I can't even visit Syria. Thus, the concept of home for me is unclear,' he added.
Yunan is also about isolation. The Golan Heights has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and is detached from the homeland, Syria, to this day.
'It is a very personal story but it is also an international story. It is mainly about detachment and being unable to communicate,' said Fakher Eldin. 'This trilogy is also about nostalgia, but it's more of a nostalgia for the future, not the past.'
In Yunan, the protagonist's mind is haunted by his mother's mysterious narrative about a shepherd with no mouth, nose, or ears. 'I see the world from a different perspective, so the film has an absurd fantasy side because even in his dreams, Munir lacks the ability to communicate,' the filmmaker explained.
Most of the film was set on one of the German Halligen, a cluster of small islands without protective dikes, where the sea regularly floods in a phenomenon called Land unter. 'This place made me ask myself many questions. I had enough time to reflect on the idea of estrangement and the meaningless silent waiting, Waiting for Godot,' he stated.
For the filmmaker, it wasn't just a setting for the film but the perfect metaphor for the story's rhythm of submersion, loss, and return.
What vanishes may not be gone forever but it will not return unchanged.
Yunan's title references the name of Prophet Yunus in the Arabic Bible, suggesting deeper metaphorical aspects in the film. 'If we are talking about estrangement, what could be stranger than being inside the belly of a whale?' says Fakher Eldin. 'I love Yunus' story, and it feels like he experienced a kind of confusion, close to what Munir's character feels.'
Ameer Fakher Eldin is working on the third part of his Homeland trilogy, Nostalgia.
'In the first two parts, I portrayed the main characters as victims, living with existential trauma. However, the third part will be entirely different,' Fakher Eldin confirmed. 'My protagonist will be a free, successful, independent man who isn't limited by borders, time, or anything else. Borders are only in our minds; they can't control our lives.'
Following Berlinale, Yunan has secured multiple distribution deals to be released in theatres worldwide, including Turkey, Italy, Germany, Greece, France, Bulgaria, and Canada.
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