‘To A Land Unknown’ Review: Sympathetic Story Of Stranded Palestinian Refugees Avoids Turning Them Into Heroes – Cannes Film Festival

A die-hard Scotland fan is set to miss the opening two matches of Euro 2024 holed up in a dark German cell.

A man who tragically died at a major international airport is believed to have intentionally climbed into the plane's engine, police have revealed.

A true nightmare for anyone afraid of airplanes. A person was actually killed after being sucked into the engine of a commercial jet on the tarmac at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Rolling off the Cannes Film Festival where it won several awards, Mohammad Rasoulof‘s “The Seed of The Sacred Fig” has been acquired by a flurry of high profile distributors in major international territories. Films Boutique, which represents the critically acclaimed political drama globally, has sold it to Lionsgate for the U.K.

Mubi has doubled down on Andrea Arnold‘s “Bird” — starring Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogoswki — swooping on North American and Turkish rights to the Cannes competition entry less than two weeks after it announced it had bought the film for the U.K. and Ireland. The acquisition — which Variety understands came after a fierce bidding war — marks another buzzy U.S.

The Match Factory has finalized a raft of international deals for Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Substance, following its buzzy premiere over the weekend in the presence of co-stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid.

Murtada Elfadl “No Other Land,” a documentary about the resistance of Palestinian activists against forced displacement and settler expansion in the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, won the Millennium Docs Against Gravity grand prize in the main competition. The jury, comprised of the writer of this article Variety critic Murtada Elfadl, Anna Hints, director of “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood,” and Lauren Greenfield, director of “The Queen of Versailles,” cited its “power in crystallizing grave injustice into a story of friendship and how hope can thrive only when everyone has freedom.” The filmmakers – the Palestinian and Israeli collective of Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor – could not attend the closing ceremony because of the political situation and the award was accepted on their behalf by the ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in Poland.

EXCLUSIVE: Francis Ford Coppola‘s $120 million passion project Megalopolis has closed a fresh raft of deals following its buzzy world premiere in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival last week. 

EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas and Utopia have announced a slew of sales for Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl following its launch at the Cannes market.

Lise Pedersen Danish-Spanish co-production “Only On Earth,” by award-winning Danish filmmaker Robin Petré (“Pulse,” “From the Wild Sea”), has picked up the top IEFTA Docs-in-Progress Award at Cannes Docs, the Cannes Film Market sidebar dedicated to documentary film. The film forms part of the Five Nordics Showcase, one of eight showcases presenting a total of 34 docs-in-progress this year. The others include Chile, Scotland, Palestine Circle Women Accelerator, Docs By The Sea, the East Doc Platform, and newcomer Switzerland.

EXCLUSIVE: Dubai-based management and production company 75East has signed Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel, whose narrative feature debut To A Land Unknown is playing in Directors’ Fortnight this year.

EXCLUSIVE: Paolo Sorrentino‘s anticipated new movie Parthenope has sold around the world for Pathé here in Cannes where the film is playing in Competition.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Rolling off its buzzy world premiere at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, Oscar-nominated Icelandic filmmaker Rúnar Rúnarsson’s poignant drama “When The Light Breaks” has sold to a raft of territories. Represented in international markets by The Party Film Sales, the movie has been picked up for Italy (Movies Inspired), Switzerland (Xenix), Norway (Arthaus), Denmark (Ost for Paradis), Finland (Cinemanse), Hungary (Vertigo), Greece (Cinobo), Israel (New Cinema), Poland (Aurora), Turkey (Bir Film) and Baltics (Estofilm).

EXCLUSIVE: One of the market’s biggest-budget projects, the Will Smith action-crime thriller Sugar Bandits, has sealed multi-million dollar deals across the world for AGC ahead of a planned September start date.

Christopher Vourlias Urban Sales has closed a raft of deals on the upcoming animated feature “Into the Wonderwoods” ahead of its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the Special Screenings section. The film, which bows with a special screening May 22 at the prestigious French fest, has sold to 45 territories, the Paris-based sales outfit announced during the Cannes Market. Pic has sold to Volga for the CIS territories and the Baltics; Selim Ramia & Co.

Jessica Kiang If the best revenge is living well, it is a truism that has not yet taken root for Hamid (a riveting Adam Bessa), the dark, scarred heart of Jonathan Millet‘s brooding, gripping “Ghost Trail.” Outside his soon-to-be-revealed mission, Hamid barely has a life at all, placing him firmly in the genre tradition of the taciturn, traumatized hero whose obsessive pursuit of his quarry leaves little room for anything beyond the constant, careful stoking of his rage, grief and survivor’s guilt. Millet’s expertly tooled movie is far from the first to derive its moral stakes from the desire to find some measure of redress for the victims and survivors of political violence, but it is among the best to also crossbreed this familiar archetype with the urgency and topicality of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Studiocanal has acquired UK and Ireland rights for Ali Abbasi’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Apprentice.

In 2020, Magnus von Horn was excited to find that his film Sweat had been accepted into the Official Selection at Cannes, a big step up from his debut, The Here After, which made Directors’ Fortnight in 2015. The pandemic put an end to that, but his disappointment was short-lived; this year, his dark atmospheric follow-up, The Girl With the Needle, sees him joining the big league. “This is huge to me,” he beams. “The main competition!”

Christopher Vourlias In the past decade, Swedish-Polish filmmaker Magnus von Horn has become something of a fixture on the French Riviera, with his latest film, “The Girl With the Needle,” the director’s third feature to debut at the Cannes Film Festival and his first to compete for the Palme d’Or. But the dark historical drama, which is set in post-WWI Copenhagen, marks a departure for the 40-year-old.

Jamie Lang Catalan films routinely punch above their weight at high-profile international festivals: Think 2022 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Alcarràs.” That trend looks primed to continue in 2024. Catalan auteur Albert Serra will debut “Afternoons of Solitude,” co-produced by Catalan companies Andergraun Films and LaCima, with Ideale Audience and Tardes de Soledad.