Part of El Gouna Film Festival

A masterpiece of Arab cinema, The Dupes is an adaptation of Ghassan Kanafani’s novella "Men in the Sun" (1963). Set in the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, the film depicts the perilous journey of three Palestinian men from different generations in their quest to escape their miserable lives and find prosperity in the oil-rich country of Kuwait.Haunted by the mirage of hope and the alluring promises of their guide, Al-Khaizaran (Abderrahman Alrahy), they agree to be smuggled across the blistering desert of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti borders, risking their lives for the salvation they hope to find. Is there a way out from the anguish of defeat and displacement? The Dupes is not only a courageous testimony to the suffering of Palestinian refugees after the Nakba but also sheds light on the complicity of Arab regimes in exacerbating their tragedy. The film was restored in 2023 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with the National Film Organization and the family of Tewfik Saleh. Mohamed Challouf and Nadi Nekol Nas helped the process. Funding was provided bythe Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.The 4K restoration used a 35mm dupe negative preserved by the Bulgarian National Film Archive (Bulgarska Nacionalna Filmoteka) and was completed in 2023 by L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory