The Dupes (Dir. Tewfik Saleh, 1972, 107 min.)

The film follows the story of three Palestinian refugees united by loss and a shared hope for a better future. Helped by a water tanker driver, the three men attempt to cross the border into Kuwait, the “promised land”. This masterful screen adaptation of Ghassan Kanafani’s novel, “Men in the Sun,” holds a monumental place in the history of Arab cinema and is one of the first Arab films to explicitly address the Palestinian tragedy. It was directed by the Egyptian filmmaker Tawfiq Saleh and shot in Syria and Iraq.

Following meticulous restoration work, which was led by Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna and the family of director Tewfik Saleh, we can now rediscover this pivotal work of Arab cinema history as it was first presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972.

The film will be presented by director, artist, and activist Philip Rizk.