Tripoli Cancelled

Tripoli Cancelled (2017), a fiction film loosely inspired by the artist’s father, follows the daily rituals of a man stranded in an abandoned airport. The film follows him through his daily routine of walking, smoking, writing letters to his wife, staging scenes with mannequins in flight attendant uniforms, and reading from the dark British children’s book Watership Down (1972). Mohaiemen shot the film in Ellinikon Airport in Athens, Greece, loosely inspired by his father’s experience of being stuck in this same airport for nine days in 1977 after losing his passport. Designed by architect Eero Saarinen in the 1960s, Ellinikon was abandoned in 2001 and was recently used to house refugees entering Greece, and then proposed as a site for luxury real estate development during European Union negotiations over Greek debt.