Discoveries from Western Sahara World Cinema

Sahrawi artist and visual poet Mohamed Sleiman Labat follows the story of the emerging phenomenon of small scale family gardens in his local community in the Hamada Desert. The film features the story of four families in Samara Camp with small scale gardens, their practices and the knowledge they develop as part of their practices in the garden. The camps are located in a very harsh environment with extreme climate conditions, and the Sahrawi are still dependent on international food aid.

DESERT PHOSfate is an artist film that tells about the impact of phosphate on the Sahrawi community and its fate, including the surprising emergence of family gardens and their knowledge of how to farm in the desert without the processed phosphorus that had caused the dislocation of the Sahrawi nomads from their homeland of Western Sahara.

Bubisher, as well as being 'the bird of luck', is a word loaded with literary meaning in Spanish in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf. Seeing the way in which two cultures interact through small stories and tales can is striking and so is the contrast between the resilience of the young female generations and the realities of life in the desert. This documentary paints a picture of a generation of young female Sahrawis.

This film is about the suffering of Sahrawi youth in the occupied Western Sahara. It tells the tragic story of their lives under occupation, and how Moroccan authorities push them to risk their lives and leave their homeland on flimsy boats to flee from a life of repression, fulfilling Morocco's goal of emptying the territory of youth, who are the foundations of society.

Western Sahara is a conflict region located in North West Africa. After a bloody war in the region, the land is littered with landmines and war ruminants and explosives. There are about 7 to 10 million landmines still buried there, especially in the area close to the wall built by Morocco and which separates Western Sahara into two. Landmines in the area have a huge impact on life in general; human casualties, cattle and irreversible environmental catastrophes.

How would you claim your identity in a hostile land? How could you live under harassment and repression? How would you make your voice break through the walls of silence? Sahrawi young people living at the Occupied Territories (O.T) are required to study at the occupying country. But a river resonates all over the desert...

The Nomad Garden is an ode to the impossible. A young Sahrawi refugee shows how he grows organic vegetables and herbs in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth, overcoming challenges like the lack of water, extreme temperatures and a barren soil.

Recording a 24-hour period throughout every country in the world, we explore a greater diversity of perspectives than ever seen before on screen. We follow characters and events that evolve throughout the day, interspersed with expansive global montages that explore the progression of life from birth, to death, to birth again. In the end, despite unprecedented challenges and tragedies throughout the world, we are reminded that every day we are alive there is hope and a choice to see a better future together. Founded in 2008, it set out to explore our planet's identity and challenges in an attempt to answer the question: Who are we?

A boy has a dream of traveling to the world, especially to Paris where his uncle lives, but a wall built on his land divides his country and does not allow him to travel or cross to the other side of his land.

HAIYU interweaves Mariem Hassan’s music and her personal quest for her country’s independence with larger historical events dating back to the region’s Spanish colonisation, and subsequent occupation by Morocco.

When you are born in refugee camps, you grow up dreaming that one day you will live in your homeland, and as time goes on, this never goes beyond being a dream... You become the father of a family, and at that moment, you have to face life to achieve self-reliance. You fight to reach your dreams and face the daily obstacles, between both worlds, you end up doing what you never thought to do.

Toufa recreates the beginnings of the Sahrawi population’s arrival in the Hamada’s arid desert. This short film tells of the suffering of three generations of Saharan women, who through their effort and sacrifice wounds of the war were healed upon their arrival in the inhospitable territory of this part of southern Algeria.

Enforced disappearances, torture, secret prisons, mass graves, no trial and no justice. The history of Western Sahara, the area south of Morocco with an as yet undefined political status, is marked by a dark sequence of human rights violations. And it’s still forgotten. The documentary tells the story of Sahrawi people through the voices of special women who’ve been victims of violence, both in Western Sahara and in the refugee camps in Algeria. Through their testimonies, diaries and old photographs, the movie reconstructs the history of Western Sahara from a female and intimate point of view.

Documentary that delvs into the legend of Haddara, a Saharawi child who after getting lost in a sandstorm in the desert was adopted by the ostriches and with them lived with them until he was found and returned to society. It became a folk tale of oral transmission until it was written by different authors. The documentary goes through looking for what's really and what's about legend.

Western Sahara is one of the most heavily mined territories in the world following decades of conflict with its neighbours. Despite a 1991 ceasefire, most Sahrawis still linger in refugee camps in Algeria because it is too dangerous to live there. Now, some brave young women have taken it upon themselves to clear their ancestral lands of landmines so their people can return.

This short film addresses the problems surrounding the appearance of narcotics in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf. These drugs are beginning to be sold in kiosks and areas close to schools, causing addictions to chemical substances among the youth.

The story of young Ahmed Tarfi might as well be the story of the Sahrawi people’s difficulties, and particularly those of the youth. The Sahrawi people are divided by a wall of more than 2000 km in length. This Moroccan wall is not only a defensive position for the occupying power, but it is also an obstacle for the cultural and social development of the original population, and also a wall of emotions and disappointments. The story of Ahmed Tarfi, despite being fictional, could very well be the story of thousands of young Sahrawis.

Their desert was not the same since they last saw it. The dunes kept memories of a childhood bathed in sun and sand, when minutes passed by in a stalling time. It has been long since they moved to the city, in search of a better future. They left, switching their tents for high buildings in busy boulevards, bearing in mind their responsibility towards their society. Each step marked by the commitment to make of their training the future of their people. It is the outcry of souls deep-rooted in tradition, in culture, in the stories of their sand. The desert was not the same, it may have never been. This documental show how they left to change it.

The narrative of resistance of Sahrawi poet Jadijetu Alaÿat flows against the background of raveling images from an unknown land.

A white melfa (Sahrawi traditional dress) contains the written desires of a group of young Sahrawi women.

The film situates the viewer within a makeshift space of an animal market in Algeria. Drifting between feeding and waiting, one attunes to the bodies of goats and camels, the oldest companions of Arab men. As we move deeper into the desert, the site turns into a sacrifice zone and reveals its dark geopolitical secrets. The sensory ethnography film will invite you to question the banality of displacement, confinement and exploitation in an out-of-sight territory.

The documentary #FreeSultana, tells the story of a Sahrawi activist who has been under house arrest for a year with her entire family, without a court order. During this time, the Moroccan paramilitaries have destroyed her house, stoned, assaulted, raped, poisoned the Jaya sisters.

A group of Sahrawi women come together and explain how traditional "jaimas" (tents) are set up.

This short film denounces the standards of beauty which Sahrawi women are subjected to, who use whitening products to lighten their skin, ignoring the risks that they may later incur.

"Once you demand any rights...you are immediately arrested", Ahmed, a graduate says. As elsewhere, the Internet has become a key tool for getting information out of the country, with films and news posted to the web, bypassing the Moroccan state's censorship. Many believe Morocco must react quickly if it is too avoid a serious split and potential civil war. The Kingdom has indicated it is ready to change. Whether that will include independence for Western Sahara is yet to be seen.

The strength and will of a girl with physical difficulties in Sahrawi society.

Equipe Media presents a short film about the history and situation of Sahrawi women.

Reflects the daily life of a child in a Sahrawi school

A young girl, frustrated with the never-ending peace process, hopes to hand over a letter containing her suffering and dreams of independence to the Special Envoy for Western Sahara appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations when he is visiting the area. But various circumstances and obstacles make it impossible to hand over the letter. However, the girl still hopes that the letter will one day reach its destination and receive an answer.

This is a story about women who are fighters, tenacious, hopeful, active women…who were capable of lifting, from nothingness, in the harshest landscape of the world, life. They are the Sahrawi women. 40 years ago, they were forced into exile; the men of this region, marched to war and the women created “temporary cities”: The Refugee Camps. They invented a new day to day life which made possible a sustainable existence and a hope, of one day returning home. Coría every night dreams of the sea; the majestic image of its water, the sound of its waves, are the echoes that join the people with their homeland. The will beats in the hearts of the Sahrawi women who maintain their unbreakable spirit, ever moving forward.

This peaceful camp protested the hard living conditions under Moroccan occupation and in favour of Sahrawi self-determination. This documentary shows how the Moroccan military dissolved it by force.

"A woman about to give birth. A nurse who skips an unfair order. A worker who claims his rights. A child who begins to discover the society in which he lives. A teacher haunted by his identity. A young woman in a hostile world. Six stories that show us the day-to-day lives of the Saharawis who livein the occupied territories of Western Sahara."

Eager to escape a life of confinement in the refugee camps of Western Sahara in Algeria, Mariam flees into the desert to join the army, naively believing herself to be the Joan of Arc who will save her country from occupation.

Atil, a documentary on the life of the Saharawis in the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria. In the camps there are no limits, since creativity and innovation give rise to ideas that succeed in changing the world. As a result, this documentary presents five young Saharawis who show day by day that anything is possible, despite the difficulties. They are all examples of perseverance. Discover a place where hope is never lost.

A documentary that shows the current state of territorial limbo in which the Sahrawi people live through the gaze of those who arrive and leave, those who resist, of the occupiers and the occupieds; a multifaceted view of what is behind the facts.

Blackmailed is love and drama nollywood African movie starring Francis duru,Queeneth Agbor,Ebube nwagbo.

OASIS, a documentary that tells us about water's historical role in Western Sahara via the true stories of people who turned this wild desert into a place full of life.

For over 40 years, the Sahrawi population, as refugees, has been waiting peacefully to return to their homeland after Morocco's illegal invasion of their territory in 1976. In the Sahrawi refugee camps, located in a portion of Algerian territory, two young men meet by chance where they share a conversation that leads them to reflect on the fleetingness of life and the urgency of making dreams possible. The dream of returning home.

'The Desert of the Desert' is a feature documentary about one of the longest-running and least- known colonial conflicts and the plight of the Sahrawi desert nomads of Western Sahara since Morocco's 1975 invasion. Shot in Jan./Feb. 2014 in the Saharawi Liberated Territories of Western Sahara, and in the Saharawi Refugee Camps in Tindouf, Algeria, the film shows the saga of the Sahrawis, their struggle to regain their homeland and the sad paradox of a nomadic people forced to live in confinement. During production, the crew made a rare treck through 3,000 kilometers of bleak and dangerous desert, becoming unwitting participants in the conflict when their jeep was blown up by an anti-tank mine less than a kilometer from their destination on Western Sahara's Atlantic coast.

Bou Craa is an investigative short documentary about the plundering of the natural resources of Western Sahara. Nushatta's Reporters At Risk For Sharing the Truth have been able to sneak into the Boo Craa phosphate mine, south-east of the main city of El-Aaiùn, occupied Western Sahara, accompanied with Saharawis from Bou Craa town who explained them Morocco's speedy policy of looting the natural resources, as well as the lack of benefits from the profits being made on their territory.

A video activist group is struggling to keep their cameras in the occupied Western Sahara where the Moroccan authorities have managed to implement a near total media blockade.

The Sahrawi people have lived in exile for almost half a century in the driest desert of the African continent. There, where basic resources such as water are scarce, there is a film school. As the world looks the other way, a group of young filmmakers carries out a battle against oblivion.

28-year-old Azman, a student in the film school Abidin Kaid Saleh, explains how he discovered film in the Sahrawi refugee camps, the difficulties he had explaining his choice of study to his family, and how his society views this career.

This documentary illustrates the story of Gdeim Izik through the voices of the Sahrawis themselves, giving personal accounts of how the camp was dismantled, what happened in the following weeks, and what it meant for them, as a people and as a nation. Our aim is to shed light on what really happened in Gdeim Izik during the autumn of 2010. The documentary is homage to the courage and strength of the Sahrawi people in their historic and unprecedented action, and it seeks recognition of their role in setting off the revolutions in the Arab world. Its aim is also to report and denounce the hypocritical role of foreign governments, the Moroccan government’s concealment of facts, and the way the Spanish government has been complicit in the situation through its policy of non-intervention in a conflict in which it is unavoidably involved.

The Year of Balls tells about part of the colonial history in Western Sahara from the perspective of the Saharawi nomads, and the systemic transformation of the Saharawi community, the history of violence, and the loss of valuable knowledge and practices. Sulaiman Labat narrates the events and what he witnessed, the nomads didn’t know about bombs or planes, when they saw the bombs, they called them balls.

A local film whose message is not political, but social. It's about sexual violence and society's vision of rape victims, who are scarred for life, and how they are forever haunted by the personal trauma of these events.

The Runner is a film about endurance. It is the story of a champion long-distance runner whose journey transformed him from an athlete into the symbol of a national liberation movement. Salah Hmatou Ameidan is willing to risk his life, his career, his family and his nationality to run for a country that doesn't exist. He is from Western Sahara, officially Africa's last colony and under Moroccan occupation since 1975.

The story of the film is inspired by the reality of the suffering of the Sahrawi people under Moroccan occupation.

"A message to Obama" is a true story about a black man that writes a letter to the President of the United States of America - Barack Obama. The film features the history of his family and his people as well as his wishes to live in peace in his homeland Sahara.

The documentary reflects the voices and photographic looks Saharawi women because they are the protagonists of this project allows us to see between the lines injustices and gaps in a decadent international system and little bit attached to reality, however, they are also women who with their example remind us that even in the injustices, despair and deprivation there is hope and dreams do not end.

"We used to travel trough Sahara in quest for clouds. We did not depend on no airplanes, nor cars, just on our camels” Sahrawi grandpas recall today.
 Since 1975 Sahrawi people live in refugee camps, surviving the desert, fighting for its independence. This documentary is witness of the birth of two Sahrawi girls, of the love that their families celebrate at their birth and at the same time is witness of their heritage of fight to recover their freedom.

The Sahara desert occupies a third of the African continent and is one of the most inhospitable regions on the planet. The region is dry enough to mummify corpses and kill bacteria. For centuries, the Sahrawis have lived under these extreme conditions in the desert. In 2019, the GalileoMobile project carried out astronomical outreach activities in the five Saharawi refugee camps to exchange knowledge and representations of the cosmos.

Is already 40 years since the saharawi population became refugee in Algeria because of the Moroccan occupation. While the POLISARIO government tries out to solve the conflict with institutional help, saharawi youngsters advocate for the option of an armed conflict. While they wait, cinema will be their only weapon.

Selma Mohamed Brahim, known as Belgha, lives in the Dajla Saharaui refugee camp in Southern Algeria. He has dedicated his life to preserving the Saharaui culture and identity, because he knows that a nation without culture is a lost nation, and he is making every effort to convey to younger generations all the things they haven't experienced.

My Sahrawi family' is a report - documentary that reflects the bonds of unity between Sahrawi families and Spanish families who every summer welcome minors from refugee camps into their homes.

Teslem, Dehba and Jadija work in a fish farm in the Saharawi refugee camps. Where? In Algeria, in the middle of the desert, far away from their land. They no longer have sea, but they have fish.

L'Aarifa is the name given to a post within the political structure of the Polisario. In the Sahrawi refugee camps this post is held by women who, at the same time, have carried great weight in the conflict. Shown in this short film is the problem that confronts one of these women in between family and work.

Waiting for the UN is a poetic documentary about life in the desert, literally and figuratively. We follow the everyday life of a Saharawi family from occupied Western Sahara, who have lived ”temporary” in a refugee camp in Algeria for over 40 years. Waiting for God and the UN, as the father puts it.

The documentary show us their hard work in order to live with dignity and the importance of education and the position of woman, both key facts in Sahrawi’s surviving in such a hard environment.