Berlin filmfest competitor ‘Yunan’ born of director’s experience of exile from Syria

BERLIN: Director and screenwriter Ameer Fakher Eldin, whose family is from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, said on Wednesday his Berlin Film Festival competition entry “Yunan” came from his personal experiences with exile and longing for a homeland.

The film, part of a trilogy that began with 2021’s “The Stranger,” stars Lebanese actor and writer Georges Khabbaz as an exiled Arab writer who finds himself on a remote German island.

“My home itself became disconnected from its homeland, which is Syria … I cannot go there,” said the director, who is of Palestinian and Syrian descent.

The Golan, a strategic plateau, was part of Syria until 1967 when Israel captured most of it during the Six-Day War, and then annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally.

“It’s a homeland I don’t know, I’ve never been to. It was in the ‘60s, but it’s a home I fantasised about a lot,” he said.

“This experience of exile somehow shaped the whole idea of the trilogy… I said, ‘I’m going to explore the theme of home’,” added Fakher Eldin, who now lives in Germany.

The director recently started working on the final instalment, “Nostalgia: A Tale In Its First Chapters.”

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Khabbaz, known for 2007’s “Under the Bombs,” told journalists in the German capital that he was surprised that he was approached for the role as he does not speak any German. “It helped me a lot being a stranger to the language and a stranger to the place and a stranger to the people,” he said.

“I was in this extreme state of strangeness when we went to the island, which as you see, is this empty, strange island with its unfamiliar natural customs,” added Khabbaz. “Yunan” is one of 19 films competing for the festival’s Golden Bear top prize, which will be awarded on February 22.