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.
Social & External
The relevant NGOs and the Spanish film industry have organized the First International Sahara Film Festival, with the official objective of bringing films to refugee camps for the first time for a few days. With a humorous tone and a self-critical intention, the aim is to include a range of shades of gray in a world dominated by black, white, and slogans.
It happens in Ecuador and South Korea, in Italy, in Venezuela and also in Western Sahara. Three men and two women live every day acting against the global corporate order. Their actions are the voices of others, of individuals, of crowds, of many. Those who seek another world.
Refugees in Algeria since 1975, the Saharawi have had to forge another life path, fighting to return home. Their children, a generation born in exile to parents born in exile, tell the story and struggle of their people, the Saharawi, through their dreams, hopes, and strength.
Filled with vitality, humor and unexpected situations, Hamada paints an unusual portrait of a group of young friends living in a refugee camp in the middle of nowhere. Western Sahara is known as “the last colony in Africa” and this conflict is the longest and one of the least known ongoing disputes in the continent, but the Sahrawi people refuse to become invisible.
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.
In a refugee camp in the Sahara desert lives a deaf boy who wants to learn to write. Welcome to the silent world of Kori and his best friend the camel Caramelo.
Lalia is a Saharaui girl who lives in a refugee camp in Algiers. She has only heard her grandmother and grandfather talk about her country, about the Sahara, that was taken away by Morroco. She dreams of one day seeing the ocean, seeing her real country. The reality she lives in is different... the uncertainty of the refugee camps, the political unbalance... but she is strong... and she knows that there can be change... she won't stop dreaming, and she won't stop longing..
This is the true story of Fetim Salam, a Saharawi refugee falsely portrayed as a slave in the Australian documentary 'Stolen'. Australian filmmakers, Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw, travel to the Saharawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria in 2007 and claim to discover 20,000 slaves in the camps run by the independence movement Polisario Front. Refugees are outraged for being portrayed as slaves, and humanitarian aid workers are incredulous about these allegations as they know the camps intimately. Filmmaker Carlos Gonzalez retraces their steps in search of the truth and finds a web of lies, misinformation and Moroccan operatives reshaping the truth.
'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.
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 Saharawi women face the thirst of the hamada, the curse of the desert, every day. They’ve built their refuge in a land where no one could survive before. For more than forty years they’ve been holding out and taking care of their people there. They ensure every drop of water is distributed according to the needs of each family … and they wait. But there’s an even more terrible thirst in their throats, for which they find no relief.
In the stunning and starkly beautiful landscape of Western Sahara, Walter Bencini recounts his journey to meet the Saharawi people, uprooted from their lands for decades and confined to desert tent camps named after the Moroccan cities where they once lived. It's the solidarity journey of a group of people from Valdarno, delivering the money and medicines raised through various initiatives directly into the hands of the beneficiaries.
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.
The Algerian region of Tindouf is home to more than 170,000 Sahrawis, who have been living in refugee camps since 1976, when Morocco occupied the Western Sahara region. In a place of inhospitable conditions and scarcity, the Sahrawi population lives on dwindling humanitarian aid. Six percent of them face the added difficulty of coeliac disease.
Young Mohamed Dih, who in Seville, returns to his birthplace – a refugee camp in Western Sahara. Time flows differently here: the times of the day are marked by calls to prayer and the seasons – by the rainfall. When a torrential downpour destroys his family’s home, the protagonist stays in the camp for longer to help to rebuild it.
Straddling a 2,400-kilometer-long wall constructed by the Moroccan army, the Western Sahara is today divided into two sections — one occupied by Morocco, the other under the control of the Sahrawi National Liberation Movement’s Polisario Front. Drawing from stories of flight, exile, interminable waiting and the arrested, persecuted lives on both sides of that wall, this film bears witness to the Sahrawi people, their land, their entrapment in other people’s dreams. In an esthetic that sublimates the real, Lost Land resonates like a score that juxtaposes sonorous landscapes, black-and-white portraits and nomadic poetics.
The political upheaval in North Africa is responsibility of the Western powers —especially of the United States and France— due to the exercise of a foreign policy based on practical and economic interests instead of ethical and theoretical principles, essential for their international politic strategies, which have generated a great instability that causes chaos and violence, as occurs in Western Sahara, the last African colony according to the UN, a region on the brink of war.
After the military occupation of Western Sahara in 1976, Moroccan government attacked the civil population with hard repression, forcing hundreds of Saharan people to “disappear” in clandestine jails. An invisible and slow death was the only horizon. However, some prisoners were able to survive after suffering their own “extinction” for more tan 10 years, ripped from their families, suffering torture, in total isolation. When they finally were released, their known world had changed radically.
The Sahara has been and is populated by peoples who have passed through and occupied it since time immemorial. The Sahrawis are one of these peoples. When Spain withdrew from its colony in 1976, Morocco invaded. Thousands have had to leave their lands to seek refuge in camps in the Sahara, in neighboring Algeria, and thousands have had to migrate to Spain and other destinations outside the Sahara. And it is the women who built the camps while the men fought, and it is they who have increasingly gained social, cultural, and political influence in the territory and in the diaspora. This is their history and their reality.
The rocky desert in southwestern Algeria is the temporary home of about 150,000 refugees from Western Sahara. Goats grazing or the opening of a beauty salon are among the many scenes of everyday life of people who are eagerly awaiting the beginning of the film festival. The observational documentary captures the unwavering love of film in a place that the world has forgotten.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.
Ross McElwee sets out to make a documentary about the lingering effects of General Sherman's march of destruction through the South during the Civil War, but is continually sidetracked by women who come and go in his life, his recurring dreams of nuclear holocaust, and Burt Reynolds.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
Filmmaker Christopher Quinn observes the ordeal of three Sudanese refugees -- Jon Bul Dau, Daniel Abul Pach and Panther Bior -- as they try to come to terms with the horrors they experienced in their homeland, while adjusting to their new lives in the United States.
This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
Martin Scorsese’s portrait of writer and social commentator Fran Lebowitz, celebrated for her sharp wit and observations on modern life. Filmed at New York’s Waverly Inn and intercut with archival footage and interviews, the documentary captures Lebowitz’s distinctive worldview through her spontaneous monologues and public appearances.
JB Smoove and Martin Starr host a celebration of 20 years of "Spider-Man" movies, from the Sam Raimi trilogy to Marc Webb's movies and the trio from Jon Watts.
Just two years away from turning 30, participants in Michael Apted's documentary series are facing serious questions of identity and purpose, wondering whether they've found their place in the world.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
This character-driven film considers the evolving sex trafficking landscape as seen by the main players: the exploited, the pimps, the johns that fuel the business, and the cops who fight to stop it.
The film follows adventurer Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Behind-the-scenes documentary about how Lionel Messi succeeded in lifting the World Cup – the only trophy to have eluded him in an incredible career.
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
A documentary on kids who attend a summer camp hoping to become the next Billy Graham.
A documentary on why 'Money Heist' sparked a wave of enthusiasm around the world for a lovable group of thieves and their professor.
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.