“Yunan” unfolds as a measured exploration of one man’s search for solace. Munir, a Hamburg-based novelist weighed down by chronic stress and a sense of dislocation, arrives on Germany’s marsh-flooded Hallig islands under a doctor’s recommendation to rest. Stripped of familiar routines, he confronts his own isolation amid windswept pastures and salt-stung air.

Director Ameer Fakher Eldin fashions this film as the second installment of his ‘Homeland’ project, following 2021’s debut. Coproduced across Palestine, Jordan, Canada, Germany, Italy and France, the movie bridges narratives of Middle Eastern displacement with European landscapes. This international partnership brings authenticity to a story centered on exile and human connection.

The film’s heartbeat is its unhurried tone, a naturalistic drama that alternates between Munir’s real-world encounters and poetic interludes drawn from a fragmentary fable. These dream-like sequences echo Abbasid poetry, weaving cultural symbolism into the stark northern coast.

Cinematographer Ronald Plante...