The film was developed in December 2021 as a part of a trilogy of Ameer Fakher Eldin's first 2021 film, 'The Stranger' with working title as 'Nothing of Nothing Remains'.
The Berlin International Film Festival has announced that Yunan, directed and written by Ameer Fakher Eldin, is among the 19 films competing for the Golden Bear at its 75th edition, scheduled to take place from February 13 to 23, 2025. Yunan will be the only Arab film featured in the Main Competition lineup.
The film is set to make its world premiere at the festival, following an awards circuit. Yunan previously debuted at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Edipo Re award in 2021. Additionally, it has garnered several accolades, including the Best Arab Film Award and the Shadi Abdel-Salam Award for Best Film at the Cairo International Film Festival.
Featuring a mix of pan-Arab and international actors, Yunan is a co-production involving Germany, France, Italy and Palestine. The cast includes Lebanese actor Georges Khabbaz in the lead role, alongside Sibel Kekilli, Ali Souleyman, Hanna Schygulla and Laura Sophia Landauer. The film’s music is composed by Suad Bushnaq.
The story follows a disillusioned Arab writer who leaves his exiled life in Hamburg and journeys to a remote North Sea island with suicidal thoughts. There, he encounters an elderly woman whose quiet compassion rekindles his will to live.
Produced by Red Balloon Film, Les Films Du Veyrier, Intramovies and Fresco Films, Yunan will be distributed across the Arab world by MAD Solutions. The film serves as the second installment in Fakher Eldin’s Home trilogy, which began with The Stranger. The director describes the film as a meditation on estrangement, exile, and the emotional burdens of the past, present and future.
He said: “Yunan is a story of salvation and rebirth. It deals with the distances that open up relentlessly as we exile, between the unforgettable past and the present, between the present and an unattainable future. It is about loneliness and depression, and particularly the kind of depression suffered by those who choose feelings they cannot bear and get stuck in the depths of their despair.”
