The wall, the Sahrawi wound

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.

"Legna: speak the Saharawi verse" is an audiovisual poetry story that traces the essential elements of the Saharawi culture, chaining the verses recited in a rigorous and evocative way in Hasania and Spanish by the poets and poetesses themselves. Poems that sing and evoke the essence of Bedouin material culture linked to the movement from Saquia el Hamra to Rio de Oro. A magical journey from the Draa River in the north to Agüenit and Leyuad on the southern border with Mauritania, from the coast with the white beaches of Bojador up to the vague boundaries of the Badia. A Saharawi national territory marked by the trace of the recent history of revolution, war, resistance (intifada) and waiting. Territory, history, culture, basted from poetry full of life, love and nostalgia.

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.

A documentary about the daily lives, hopes, aspirations and demands of though living in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Dajla.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Short film filmed in February 2010 at the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf (Algeria). A poetic look into the situation that refugees go through and into the conflict itself. Soundtrack by Palestinian musicians and Spanish rock band Amaral. “We want words that fly freely, like comets, we want to be the irrepressible wind that comes and goes… And can’t ever be trapped in any sand prison… We want words that fly freely. Invincible. Like comets…”

The film offers an insight into a nearly forgotten world. The times when the Sahrawi war of independence was on the international agenda seem to be long forgotten. The fate of hundreds of thousands Sahrawis living in refugee camps since the 1970s seems not to be spectacular enough for further attention. Inthe film the women get a chance to speak. It is a film about their experiences and hopes. It is mainly a film about life in surroundings where seemingly normal things are real challenges. The film is a simple and impressive portrait of women, who have been fighting against their fate to help their people. They have never lost their drive, no matter how unfavourable the circumstances have been. It reminds us of the fate of the Sahrawi people. The film is realistic, without any kitsch elements. It shows impressive pictures of the real lives of strong women, who have never stopped fighting for independence.

Reality documentary that chronicles the Saharawi refugees living in camps in the Tindouf Hammada, Algeria, Sahara desert. Through an informative overview of the events that led them to this situation and the statements of four of its people we understand their past, we discover their present and get to know their future

Reflects the daily life of a child in a Sahrawi school

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

Siya, Dumaha, Mata and Aziz are Saharawi refugees that live in camps in Tindouf (Algeria). They show us the daily extreme harshness of an exile that lasts for 40 years. We can discover the unknown reality of torture, mines and maimed people, child malnutrition or mental illnesses that plague the Saharawi people, who are condemned to live away from their homeland.

This documentary shows the torments and comrade disappearance ocurrences in the Moroccan Occupied Western Sahara through the eyes of Yahia, a young Sahrawi person living in Barcelona. It tells of the the precarious living conditions in the Algerian refugee camps and the situation of immigrant Sahrawis in Spain, the old colonizing power in Western Sahara. Similar to the majority of young Sahrawis, Yahia has come to the conclusion that after so many years of supporting the pacifist route, war is the only option for the Sahrawi community to regain their territory.

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

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.

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.

Through images and testimonies of Sahrawi women, this film introduces us to the situation and the living conditions the Sahrawi people have been subjected to since, in 1975, Western Sahara was occupied by Morocco and thousands of men, women and children were forced to flee and look for refuge in Algerian territory, in the inhumane "hamada" (rocky desert) of Tindouf. Sahrawi women, exiled to the refugee camps of Tindouf since 1975, have been the driving force behind a genuine revolution in all areas of Sahara society. They have carried out the miracle of reviving the spirit of a devastated community in the middle of a hostile, rocky desert.