Voyages au centre de la Terre : Dans les pas de Jules Verne

Hamada

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.

Robbed of Truth

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.

Lost land

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.

Mines antipersonnel : La guerre des lâches

Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony

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.

Out of Darkness: The Mine Workers' Story

OUT OF DARKNESS: THE MINE WORKERS' STORY is a documentary by Academy Award-winning director Barbara Kopple (HARLAN COUNTY, USA). Historical film footage and photographs are integrated with first-hand accounts of UMWA history and of the Pittston strike of 1989-90.

Demolition of a Wall

Auguste Lumière directs four workers in the demolition of an old wall at the Lumière factory. One worker is pressing the wall inwards with a jackscrew, while another is pushing it with a pick. When the wall hits the ground, a cloud of white dust whirls up. Three workers continue the demolition of the wall with picks.

But They Did

Anna Osborn and Sonia Rockhouse were forever changed when the Pike River Mine Disaster stole their loved ones, but instead of sitting down, they stood up! But They Did tells Anna and Sonia's story, following them through the period of time before and during the re-entry of the mine.

Un viaje hacia nosotros

Spanish actor Pepe Viyuela embarks on a personal journey on the trail of his grandfather Gervasio, a soldier in the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War.

San Gottardo

In this docudrama, the real star is a railroad tunnel. First built, at the instigation of a banker and an engineer, in 1872 under appalling conditions, it was widened to accommodate automobiles in 1972. The tunnel links the Rhineland in Germany with Italy and goes through the Swiss mountains. The many lives lost in the building of the first tunnel were considered to be one of the costs for economic progress. In one re-enactment, a strike for better conditions is severely dealt with by the military. Even in 1972, though working conditions were better, most of the men working on the tunnel were poor immigrant workers, with almost no power to negotiate better treatment.

Sahrawis, a glimpse into exile

Filmed in the camps of Sahrawi refugees living in West-Algeria and Tifaritti (the liberated territory). The narrator, in his multiple interviews, examines the reality of these people who have been condemned to silence in exile. This is a direct and concise documentary that gives the refugees the opportunity to express themselves, as well as hearing from other people implicated in the conflict.

Sahrawi people

Documentary about the arduous early years of the Sahrawi cause (1977)

Heiresses

Two planes take off at the same time headed in opposite directions. Fatimetu and Ejehla. Two distinct lives destined to follow similar paths. One past desired, but fuzzy, and a future. One inheritance, becoming more and more fragile. “Heirs” gathers the testimony of different generations of women who live within and outside of the camps and paints a profile of the present situation in which these Sahrawi women live and the future they've inherited, living in an orphan-like territory separated from their homeland for more than 33 years…

Sahara Marathon

This film offers a picture of the tense situation in which the Sahrawi people have lived for more than 30 years. The yearly celebration of a marathon in the Sahrawi refugee camps serves as the central focus of the story.

Lives on pause

Every year, approximately 800 Sahrawi boys and girls leave the refugee camps to study in Cuba, Algeria and Libya… 15 years later, they return biologists, doctors, engineers… but when they get back to the refugee camps all they have is the desert…

Belgha, the alive memory

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.

Tebraa, portraits of Sahrawi women

Tebraa is the song of the women of the Sahara desert. Songs of love or lamentation that they sing when they are alone. This collective documentary made by a group of Andalusian women tells the life and injustices that Sahrawi women experience in the adverse conditions of exile and in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

School desks in the desert

A nine-year old girl, Naha, who in day-to-day life studies primary education en Wilaya de Smara is the point of departure for this documentary. Through the her family life, teachers, those responsible for Sahrawi education and NGOS, we understand the education system in the camps causing us to be in awe of the patience of the Sahrawi people, refugees for 35 years, holding out hope for a definitive solution to the conflict. This documentary intends to introduce the viewer to the situation of the Sahrawi people in the camps through one of the most basic needs for the development of a community: chidren's education. Education in the Sahrawi refugee camps is supported by women being those that develop and strengthen the task of educating in schools.

The nomad garden

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.