The 24th edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival has wrapped up in Romania.
During Saturday Night’s closing gala at the National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca, British director Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown took home the Transilvania Trophy, the festival’s 10,000-euro top prize.
The film is described as an intense drama about two Palestinian refugees living in Athens, caught between petty scams and the hope of a better life in Germany. Amid a climate of despair and moral compromise, one spirals deeper into a cycle of manipulation and exploitation of those around him.
“It was more about survival than storytelling. We struggled for nearly ten years to make it,” said Fleifel, adding of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict: “The problem in Palestine is not the Palestinians, it’s the occupation—and that must end.”
German director Noaz Deshe’s Xoftex won the €3,500 Best Directing Award, sponsored by the Romanian Cultural Institute.
During Saturday Night’s closing gala at the National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca, British director Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown took home the Transilvania Trophy, the festival’s 10,000-euro top prize.
The film is described as an intense drama about two Palestinian refugees living in Athens, caught between petty scams and the hope of a better life in Germany. Amid a climate of despair and moral compromise, one spirals deeper into a cycle of manipulation and exploitation of those around him.
“It was more about survival than storytelling. We struggled for nearly ten years to make it,” said Fleifel, adding of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict: “The problem in Palestine is not the Palestinians, it’s the occupation—and that must end.”
German director Noaz Deshe’s Xoftex won the €3,500 Best Directing Award, sponsored by the Romanian Cultural Institute.
- 6/22/2025
- by Glenn Garner
- Deadline Film + TV
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