“Yunan”, interview with director Ameer Fakher Eldin

At the 16th Bari International Film & Tv Festival, FRED Film Radio interviewed the director Ameer Fakher Eldin to talk about “Yunan”, a film presented at the Meridiana section.

The meaning of home

“Yunan” is a film that talks about identity and memory. Two elements deeply linked to the concept of “home”. What does “home” represent for Ameer Fakher Eldin. “I come from a place which is a bit conflicted with this matter”, says the director. “I come from the occupied Golan Heights, which was Syrian back in 1967, and since then it’s been under Israeli occupation. Growing up there felt very much like an exile. Usually we connotate it with some movement that you have to flee. In my situation I didn’t need to flee. I was displaced in my home. I’ve never been to Syria and I can’t go to it. The idea of home in this regard is complicated. I tend to suggest in my films that home could be also in our fantasy as well”.

The fear of being forgotten

Thanks to Mounir’s mother and the fairy tale, “Yunan” also talks about memory. But what does it mean for a person who can’t go home and can’t even go to their motherland? “I think, my main character is more feeling that his fear is not only that he lost something in the past but that he will be forgotten. The whole film started with a question: ‘Who are you when your mother forgets about you?’”.

A dark moment for humanity

We are living in a really dark time and talking about roots. What did Ameer Fakher Eldin feel when he heard Trump’s words about the future of the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian people? “Terrible, of course. This guy is just crazy. I don’t think anyone should take him seriously”, says the director. “It’s scary, but on the same impulse, I’m not surprised because the world has always been kind of torn between the north and the south. And now somehow the wrong people are in charge. And it’s funny because for this film I was inspired by the suicide letter of Stefan Zweig, which is a Jewish Austrian author who fled the World War Two from Austria. He tried London and he failed, he tried New York and he failed. He found a peaceful refuge in Brazil. Somehow the cycle is now turned. It was the north seeked refuge in the south. And now it’s somehow the opposite. When I read his suicide letter, I was inspired. This is so relevant to any odyssey of a human kind of exile”.

The trilogy

“Yunan” is the second chapter of a trilogy. What will the last chapter be about? “The trilogy, called ‘Home,’ started to explore the idea of displacement and the idea of home. And it starts with ‘The Stranger,’ which was mainly about a man who doesn’t want to leave his country, even though it’s in crisis and in a kind of war. He had a reason why he wanted to stay, but he was a stranger among his own people. And so he also had an existential crisis there”, says Ameer Fakher Eldin. “The second one was kind of the opposite. There’s a character in exile, unable to go home and he also has an existential crisis. The third film will be about a character who is free from all borders. He’s a free character. He’s very successful. He comes from a small village somewhere in the Middle East, but he’s free. He’s all over the world and there are no borders anymore. But he’s still nostalgic. But this time I won’t look at him as a victim. It’s important for me to close this trilogy to make sure that we look at the nostalgic not as a victim, but as a toxic presence. And this toxicity of being nostalgic is to understand that, maybe, the borders are in his head”.

Plot