Mahdi Fleifel
DENMARK/PALESTINE
2025/2026
My Father’s House
Mahdi Fleifel is an award-winning filmmaker whose work explores themes of displacement, identity, and memory through both fiction and documentary. A graduate of the UK’s National Film & Television School, he founded Nakba FilmWorks in 2010 and works between Denmark, England, and Greece. His acclaimed films—including A World Not Ours, A Man Returned, and A Drowning Man—have received major honors at Berlinale, Cannes, and IDFA. His latest feature, To a Land Unknown, premiered at Cannes 2024 and is set for theatrical release in over 40 countries. At the Institute of Ideas and Imagination, he is developing a new project that draws on personal and historical narratives of displacement.
At the Institute, Fleifel will be working on My Father’s House, a personal essay film that weaves together poetic documentary, archival family footage, and literary references to explore memory, displacement, and the legacy of exile. Centered on his late father — a Palestinian refugee and self-taught videographer — the film draws from the dozens of tapes, photographs, and untold stories he left behind. Shot across Denmark, Lebanon, and Palestine, it unfolds through a first-person narrative that reflects on home, loss, fatherhood, and identity.