My name is Mohannad Ghawanmeh—film scholar and cineaste. I have produced, acted in, curated for, written about, and lectured on film. My expertise is centered on Arab cinema, but thoroughly extends into silent cinema, non-fiction cinema, transnational cinema, religious cinema, and more. I am a PhD candidate in Cinema and Media Studies in the University of California, Los Angeles. I am also a 2017–18 fellow in the American Research Center in Egypt. My dissertation investigates the political economy of silent cinema in Egypt, 1896–1932.
The Dupes and the Wage of Escapism
Three Palestinians seek to escape a refugee camp in Tewfik Saleh’s 1972 film The Dupes (Al-makhdu’un), which—writes Mohannad Ghawanmeh—“showcases a gesture of defiance, perceptible to those who can look past, or into, calamity.”