BERLIN – “How many borders does one have to cross to get home?” Theo Angelopoulos asked in his trilogy on borders. That question echoes and reverberates in Yunan, in Competition at the Berlinale, second work from director Ameer Fakher Eldin. Born in Ukraine to Syrian parents, the director lived in the occupied Golan Heights, and returns here to explore the theme of exile and being far from one’s home. It is a whispered, poetic film, which develops around almost imperceptible glances, quietly gifted gestures and moments of kindness while exploring identity and the consequences to losing a sense of home and belonging. In exploring an existential dimension that goes beyond a simple question of geographical distance, it takes a broader view, examining the sense of estrangement from a place of origin.
The director’s second work - his debut The Strangers won acclaim at Venice 2021 - once again explores the theme of exile (he has announced a third instalment), inspired by his unique life experience: “Usually, we associate exile with movement, with someone being forced or having to move because of war and domestic crises. But in my situation, it was just a border: I never had to move from the Golan Heights, yet my home was separated from its homeland, Syria. Living there simply meant having a border and not being able to cross it. I felt that beyond there was a homeland that I didn’t know, that I had never seen. This experience of exile somehow shaped the whole idea of ??the trilogy. As I said, I will fundamentally explore the theme of home, both in the past, present and future".
The film tells the story of an Arab writer in exile (Georges Khabbaz) who goes to a remote island in Germany to commit suicide. But the mysterious Valeska (Fassbinder's muse Hanna Schygulla) gradually brings him back to life with small gestures and a few words of kindness. A co-production between Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Palestine and Jordan, produced for Italy by Intramovies. Among other contributions, it received support from the Apulia Film Fund and a €150,000 grant from the Minority Co-Production Call (2024) of the General Directorate of Cinema and Audiovisual of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
While Yunan was shot mainly in Germany, scenes of the ‘home’ of origin were filmed over several days in Gravina in Puglia, Minervino Murge, Poggiorsini and Spinazzola. “I wanted a place that was like a “no man’s land”, the director explained the choice of locations in Italy. “A place where there is no urban development, just valleys that leave you feeling suspended. After a lot of research, we found this beautiful place in Puglia, a place that appears like a dream, as it is in the film. Also, I wanted something warm, a temperature that reminded me of home. There is also another idea: home is wherever you feel at home, or any place where something reminiscent of home is possible. The first time I met Hanna, after telling her about the film, she asked: “Why can’t a person have two homes?” A question that made me think. To have two homes, we have to make two choices. Either we continue to see others, strangers, as a threat, or we let go and live the human experience, enjoying our shared humanity, accepting ourselves without labelling ourselves, or others. That, in some way, is home for me.”
The remote island where the main character plans to isolate himself from the world is part of the Hallingen islands in the North German Sea which temporarily vanish under the water during the highest tides and then re-emerge. “It was not just a setting,” says the director, “but also the perfect metaphor for the rhythm of the story: submersion, loss and return. What disappears is not gone forever, but when it returns it is not unchanged. This idea became central to my approach to the film, which is based on the unsaid and the exploration of the silent spaces left behind.”
Moving away reshapes our understanding of ourselves and the meaning of home; the film offers no comfort in a return nor the illusion that we can simply go back and set things right. Even on return, a sense of distance remains which changes the way we see what we thought we knew.