Un viaje hacia nosotros

Les enfants de la lanterne magique(fr)

Testimonies of a Massacre: Tula Toli(my)

Filmed along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border and within Rohingya refugee camps, Shafiur Rahman’s documentary on the 2017 Tula Toli massacre exposes chilling interviews and evidence of Myanmar military’s premeditated atrocities. The film documents mass killings, sexual violence, and the systematic destruction of the village of Tula Toli, highlighting a humanitarian crisis that forced over half a million people—many of them children—to flee in an exodus of historic scale.

An Oppressed People Is Always Right(da)

In May 1974, the Israeli Air Force carried out an extermination operation against the Palestinian refugee camp Nabatiyeh. With this as a starting point, it is reviewed how the last 50 years of Zionist colonization of Palestine have partly led to the establishment of the state of Israel, partly to the expulsion of a people, the Palestinians, from their land. The film shows scenes of daily life in Palestinian refugee camps. We hear various of the inhabitants talk about their desire to return to their country, and we follow how the resistance movement works to free women from their traditional backward role. At the same time, the emergence of the armed resistance struggle is analysed, and the significance of the latest military technological developments for guerilla wars in the 3rd world is explained.

Homefront(uk)

A family with five children flees the war raging in their home village on the Russian border. They end up in Mshanets, a farming village on the other side of the country, remote and unknown. Here the family starts building a new home. At the same time, two documentary makers come to the village, looking for a story. In the Lymar family they find the ideal characters for their film. But one day, when the renovation of their house is almost finished, the family disappears. The filmmakers go in search of their characters and along the way they try to find an answer to the question: what does a person need to feel at home?

Journey to Saharawi – The Courage to Live for Freedom(it)

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.

Save Our Souls(en)

Bobbing around on Mediterranean waters aboard the Ocean Viking, aid workers from the French relief service SOS Méditerranée gaze at the horizon. Is that a rubber dinghy in the distance, or is it garbage? The organization sails up and down the Libyan coast looking to pick up refugees in boats. On board is a 30-strong team ready to offer help and support refugees with their asylum applications.

Rosans, Bitter Honey(fr)

In 1963, Rosans, a village in the Hautes-Alpes region depopulated by the rural exodus, welcomed Harkis (military soldiers) forced to leave Algeria for supporting France during the Algerian War. Around thirty families settled in a camp below Rosans. Nearly half a century after their arrival, first- and second-generation Harkis and native Rosanais recount their experiences of this culture clash, often painful, sometimes happy. Language barriers, religious differences, living in barracks for 14 years, and unemployment were all obstacles to overcome in order to be accepted and then achieve mutual enrichment. Enriched with archive footage to explain the historical context of the time, the film seeks above all to express feelings and unspoken words.

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.

Musawat, inclusion in the Sahrawi camps(es)

Education Center for disabled children located in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. Despite the precarious conditions in which this population lives since 40 years ago, the Polisario Front as the representative of the Sahrawi people has promoted inclusion as a way to avoid marginalization and discrimination of one of the most vulnerable populations within these territories: children with special needs. "Castro" is the man who devotes his life to this beautiful project fighting all odds: physical, psychic, social, economic, and even the incomprehensions of his own society. The Sahrawis are living (resisting) in one of the harshest deserts on Earth but Castro has the magic formula to achieve the inclusion of these wonderful beings in his society and in the rest of the world: MUSAWAT, EQUALITY.

HALEMEH(ar)

In the Gaza refugee camp of Jerash, Palestinians face the critical issue of lacking identification documents. This situation undermines their rights and hinders access to essential services and opportunities.

Notices from Yonas(en)

A cell phone was the only thing that kept Yonas, an Eritrean refugee, connected to Jérôme, the French journalist who wanted to tell his story. They met in Libya in 2019, in the abyss of a detention center. Yonas managed to escape and attempted several times to cross the Mediterranean. Like many others who jump from one hell to another, Yonas's only option was to flee forward, and what lay before him was a small boat. Yonas's News chronicles the epic journey in which his life was at stake, summarized in the WhatsApp and voice messages, photos, and videos he was able to exchange with Jérôme. Jérôme Tubiana, journalist, researcher, and member of Doctors Without Borders, has visited Libya five times between 2018 and 2020.

Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing their Crimes(fr)

The documentary of the Nuremberg War Trials of 21 Nazi dignitaries held after World War II.

Life is waiting: referendum and resistance in Western Sahara(en)

Forty years after its people were promised freedom by departing Spanish rulers, Western Sahara remains Africa's last colony. This film chronicles the everyday violence experienced by Sahrawis living under Moroccan occupation and voices the aspirations of a desert people for whom the era of colonialist never ended.

Aita Mari(es)

The Stella Maris Berria is a tuna vessel destined for scrapping. However, Iñigo Mijangos and Iñigo Gutierrez, two members of the NGO Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario, have an unusual idea: to transform the fishing boat into a rescue boat to save refugees drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. That is how Aita Mari was born.

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.

State of rest(en)

Salka was born as a refugee in the Sahara desert, and grew up in Italy by chance: she was one of the so-called "Little Peace Ambassadors". Sahrawis have been sending to Europe their children for decades, to show the world the injustice they suffer. A 2700 km long mined wall across the desert, and there's no mention of it even in UN resolutions on Western Sahara. This former spanish colony, just in front of Canary Islands, is occupied by Morocco since 1975. In 2011 I spent 5 weeks in the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf, outer south-west of Algeria. This is where the Sahrawi's escape from their war-devastated land stopped, though none of them imagined they would stay there so long. When I met Salka, her foster italian mother Carmen and her mother Aisha, I had finally found what I had been looking for: state of rest began to take shape. Neither Salka nor I were born when it all began. Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco and plundered by many others for over 40 years

My friends(nl)

A film about a generation of four friends who grew up together in Sarajevo. They are the friends of filmmaker Lidija Zelovic-Goekjian, now living scattered across the world. What has happened to them over the past 13 years: how did they survive the war, how do they live now, how do they look back on their former lives, on Sarajevo, and on their old friends?

Dajla: cinema and oblivion(es)

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.

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.

A garden that means more than a garden(en)

Taleb, who came to a refugee camp at the age of five in 1975 and returned there after his studies abroad, tells of his life as a displaced person, his gratitude for the reception and support in Algeria, and his hope that the Sahrawis may one day return to their homeland. For Taleb, this hope drives him to actively prepare for better times: as a graduate in agricultural sciences, he conceived a successful small-scale closed-loop economy in a desert under the most difficult conditions, producing enough food for self-sufficiency.