All about my tent

Sand bellies(es)

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.

Hamada(es)

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(en)

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(fr)

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.

Legna(ar)

"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.

Milestone No. 3(en)

Milestone No. 3 is a documentary following three lifelong friends as they travel across the country to California for the very first time. Armed with doubts and anxiety about continuing his filmmaking career, director Nicholas Dapolito enlists the help of friends and family to examine why he creates, and if this path is truly right for him.

A Sahrawi story(it)

It describes the way of life of the Sahara people in the Western Sahara Desert, in particular it tells the story of a child bitten by a snake.

Atu, the face of a forgotten nation(es)

Atu is a 12-year-old Saharawi girl who comes to Valencia every summer to escape the suffocating desert summer in exile. Two opposing worlds between a conflict that has driven hundreds of thousands of people away from Western Sahara forcing them to live in southwestern Algeria. At her young age, with little resources and no homeland, she courageously faces the future.

Mektub(es)

Mektub portrays a day in the life in the Sahrawi refugee camps, along with the declarations of some of its protagonists. But behind this seemingly calm life hides a common fight, which is to continue fighting and protesting to accomplish the single common goal that all Sahrawis have as a nation: to take back the occupied land, rebuild their country, and reunite with their families.

Sahara Marathon(eu)

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.

The Sahrawi teacher(es)

For more than thirty years, tens of thousands of Saharawi have lived in makeshift camps, refugees in the Algerian desert. Because of this situation, children are forced to travel far to complete their studies. Many are trained in Cuba during a period of more than twelve years away from home. This documentary chronicles the daily lives of these students, both in the desert, as in Cuba, in a round trip full of contrasts.

Bourvil : le rire et la tendresse(fr)

Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony(es)

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.

Un viaje hacia nosotros(es)

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.

Temporaire Vie(ar)

Moments captured during a film festival. Little talks beside theater, watching films, and going out at night around the city.

February 27th(en)

Documentary about refugees from Western Sahara living in Algeria.

Planet of the Tapes(en)

A Deep Dive into the life of Stephen Zivkovic, the owner of the last DVD rental store in Adelaide.

Laatash(ar)

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.

Heiresses(ca)

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…

Daughters of sand(es)

Benda, a young Sahrawi woman in the diaspora wonders about the future of her people's children and women. We accompany her on an emotional journey to the refugee camps to see the more human face of the conflict. The film leaves the political as a mere context to focus on the dreams and drama of a people determined in their struggle to return home.