Mahdi Fleifel is a Danish-Palestinian film director who graduated in 2009 from the UK National Film & TV School. In 2010 he set up the London-based production company Nakba FilmWorks with Irish producer Patrick Campbell. His debut feature documentary, A World Not Ours (2012), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and picked up over 30 awards, including the Peace Film Prize and the Panorama Audience Award at the 2013 Berlinale and the Edinburgh, Yamagata and DOC:NYC Grand Jury Prizes. Mahdi’s 2016 short film, A Man Returned, won the Silver Bear and the European Film Nomination at the Berlinale and his latest film, A Drowning Man, formed part of the Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2017 and was nominated for a BAFTA award. His fiction feature film debut, a co-production of UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece (Homemade Films), Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Palestine, To A Land Unknown had its world premiere at the 2024 Quinzaine des Cinéastes in Cannes to rave reviews and is currently screening in festivals and theatres around the world.
