21 minutes that'll ruin gym bros for you forever.
BLESSED BLESSED OBLIVION weaves together a portrait of masculine performativity in East Jerusalem, as manifested in gyms, body shops and hair dressing parlors.
Direction
Manna's patient gaze weaponizes intimacy.
Cinematography
Sweat, oil, chrome — bodies as contested territory.
Sound
Hamsawi's voiceover hypnotizes and destabilizes.
Director
Jumana Manna
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The title references Tennessee Williams' 'Sweet Bird of Youth' — Manna found the phrase 'blessed blessed oblivion' in a Beirut gym's English textbook.
Shot in East Jerusalem's no-man's-land spaces, the film quietly maps how Palestinian masculinity gets performed for multiple audiences: local, colonial, and diasporic.
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