Tewfik Saleh

توفيق صالح (Known as "Saleh")

Film Director, Pioneer of Arab Political Cinema, Director of The Dupes

Born Oct 27, 1926

Alexandria, Egypt

Passed Away Aug 18, 2013 Cairo, Egypt

Lifespan 86 years old

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Notice / Correction

"Why didn't they bang on the walls of the tank? The artist's duty is to shatter the silence."

Archival Overview

Intellectual pioneer of Arab political cinema whose adaptation of Ghassan Kanafani's Men in the Sun into the film The Dupes (Al-Makhdou'un) won the Tanit d'Or at the 1972 Carthage Film Festival.

Biographical Record

A close friend of Naguib Mahfouz from Alexandria, Tewfik Saleh studied cinema in Paris before directing his 1955 debut Darb al-Mahabil (Fools' Alley). His films directly interrogated state authority, agrarian corruption, and societal apathy.

Faced with state censorship in Egypt, he filmed his masterpiece Al-Makhdou'un (The Dupes) in Syria in 1972, universally hailed as one of the greatest films ever made on the Palestinian tragedy and the agony of exile in the desert.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial

Sayyida Nafisa Cemetery
Cairo, Egypt

                         GPS: 30.0217, 31.2528                    

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