Artist and filmmaker Naeem Mohaiemen, born in England and raised in Bangladesh and Libya, has witnessed the fragility of the socialist dream and decolonisation in both Asia and Africa. In his work, Mohaiemen draws on his upbringing and collective memory to explore failed utopias and changing borders, both literal and linguistic. The film Tripoli Cancelled (2017) follows a week in the life of a man who has been trapped in an abandoned airport for over a decade. The character interacts with imaginary airport staff, writes letters to his wife, and ponders life as he considers, for example, Hannah Arendt’s writings on the ‘banality of evil’ and Primo Levi’s reflections on the term Muselmänner [Muslims], used colloquially by Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz for other prisoners who had given up hope on life. Shot in the Eliinikon Airport in Greece, the film is loosely inspired by an experience of Mohaiemen’s father, who was stuck in this same Athens airport for nine days in 1977 after losing his passport on a Bangladesh-India flight.