Berlinale | Film review “Yunan”
Memory and Connection

Ameer Fakher Eldin weaves a profound philosophical tale in his film “Yunan,” which explores themes of existence and death, with the film standing as the only Arab entry in the official competition of the Berlinale 2025.

By Ahmed Shawky

Does a director consciously craft movies that mirror their inner obsessions and fears, or does their art naturally echo what stirs within them? And must we approach the end to truly savor the joy of life? Ameer Fakher Eldin Film Yunan moves between the poles of identity, memory, and despair.

Yunan is the Arabic name of the Prophet Jonah, who in Abrahamic mythology left his people after despairing that they would ever believe his message. On his travels, he was swallowed by a huge whale, only for God to save him after three days in the animal’s belly. His story became a metaphor for despair that leads a person to a dead end, but also for the restoration of hope at the darkest moment.

The story may explain director Ameer Fakher Eldin’s choice of the title Yunan for his second feature film, the only Arab entry in the Competition section of the 75th Berlinale. The themes of despair and the feeling of wandering are present in every element of the film, just as in Fakher Eldin’s first film Al Ghareeb (The Stranger). It was the introduction to a trilogy, of which Yunan is the second chapter.

The director calls his main protagonist Munir Nour El-Din, easily recognisable as a dramatic counterpart to the director’s own name. The hero hails from an unspecified Arab country, but lives in the German city of Hamburg, where he works as a writer. The story begins when he undergoes an existential crisis. Given the fact that Fakher Eldin himself was born in Ukraine, to parents from Syria’s Golan Heights, this makes the work a prototype of a cinematic work as a reflection of the artist’s life, through which he tries to convey his concerns and contemplate his own relationship with himself and the world.

Lost Memory, Missing Communication

The elements of memory and communication represent the essence of Fakher Eldin’s cinematic project, featuring strongly in both Yunan and The Stranger. The characters in both films live burdened with pains that are difficult to explain to those who have not lived them, as they are the accumulation of years of alienation, wandering and aborted dreams. Munir’s mother, with whom he communicates electronically, gradually loses her memory until she is unable to recognise him, just as he repeatedly fails to recall a story his mother tells him, about a cursed shepherd. Contrary to the liberation that could result from the disappearance of a memory, Munir appears to be stuck in a limbo, able neither to hang onto the past nor to communicate with the present. His state of eternal isolation drives him to seek refuge on a remote island off northern Germany. He sets off ostensibly in response to doctor’s orders, but in reality, he plans that the journey will be his last, during which he will end his own life.

Yet chance leads Munir (Georges Khabbaz) to an inn run by a strong-willed German woman (Hanna Schygulla), along with her violent son, who initially refuses to tolerate the presence of their guest. Things begin to change when a rainstorm threatens to flood the island, and Munir’s relationship with his host Valeska and her son develops. Subsequently, he starts to regain his ability to communicate with others, to the extent that the shared space allows. A Cinematic Gem
Fakher Eldin’s second film in a row is a unique work, one that calls on the viewer to give it enough time to introduce its characters and enter their world. It has a calmness influenced by the heritage of poetic cinema, while attempting to present a contemporary version of that genre.

Fakher Eldin’s works are simple if we only asked “what happens to the film’s protagonists,” but take on a very profound nature we wonder about “what happens within them”.

Just as the director’s own complex roots represent a source of rich, raw material for his films, they simultaneously give rise to a more complex mix: an enjoyable watching experience that does not demand a significant amount of effort. This is cinema that blends the influences of Medieval Arabic poet Abu Tayeb Al-Mutanabbi, A Thousand and One Nights, Andrei Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr, and many other sources from which the director draws together his culture and aesthetic formulation. From this, he presents us once again with a special work that addresses an audience similar to himself.