Mona Benyamin's film 'Moonscape' explores lunar land ownership as Palestinian displacement metaphor

Mona Benyamin's 2020 short film 'Moonscape' examines the Lunar Embassy's sale of extraterrestrial property through a Palestinian lens. The 17-minute video features the artist's parents performing an Arabic ballad about the company founded by Dennis M. Hope in 1980. While the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits national sovereignty claims over celestial bodies, it doesn't address individuals, enabling Hope to sell millions of lunar acres. Benyamin, born in 1997 in Palestine and working between Palestine and New York's Hudson Valley, investigates why no Palestinians own moon land despite the Embassy's galactic passport offers. Data reveals only Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have made recent purchases, with no orders from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, or Egypt. The film incorporates NASA archive footage and email correspondence showing the fantasy nature of these deeds, which provide no protection against potential evacuation. Through surreal staging and brooding soundscapes, Benyamin connects space ownership dreams to earthly displacement realities, questioning whether Arab nations envision alternative futures beyond ongoing conflict. Her work explores intergenerational trauma and memory transmission using dark humor and media appropriation. The film screened online from July 17 to August 18, 2025 as part of Art Lovers Movie Club on artreview.com.