Palestine Cinema Days | Tewfik Saleh, 'The Dupes'

On November 2, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Film Lab Palestine are organising over 500 Palestinian film screenings around the world. This global effort is a show of solidarity with Palestine, an act of amplification for censored Palestinian voices, and a contribution to shifting the distorted narrative.

The Dupes is a powerful political drama based on the 1962 novella Men in the Sun by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani. It follows the tragic journey of three Palestinian refugees—Abu Qais, Assad, and Marwan—each from a different generation, who are desperate to escape the harsh conditions of refugee camps in Lebanon and seek a better life in Kuwait.

Directed by Tewfik Saleh, a pioneering Egyptian filmmaker known for his realistic and political cinema. Born in Alexandria in 1926, he studied film in Paris. Saleh was known for his humanistic style and independent stance, often clashing with censorship authorities. He received several international awards and passed away in 2013, leaving behind a powerful legacy in Arab cinema.

Runtime: 107 minutes
Language: Arabic (with English subtitles)

The film will be followed by an open audience discussion led by the event organisers.

Palestine Cultural Days Dublin is a Dublin-based collective, with a mission to foster cultural exchange, understanding, and collaboration between the Middle East and Nirth African region and Ireland through arts and culture.

With its slogan 'Emancipatory Film Culture in, from, and for Palestine', Filmlab Palestine, a non-profit organization, strives, since its foundation in 2014, to promote, revive, and expand one of the most effective audiovisual tools for self-expression, storytelling, and the preservation of collective memory: Cinema.

This event is supported by Free Space at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. Free Space creates opportunities for artists to access space in the city for peer learning, artist exchanges, project development and presentations.