Following the 18th Edition held this past April-May in the Sahrawi refugee camps, FiSahara (Western Sahara International Film Festival) moves to the Filmoteca of Zaragoza from October 18 to 20 with a series of screenings and discussions that, under the same theme Jaimitna Fi Cinema (Our tent in the cinema): To resist is to win, pays tribute to the long struggle of Sahrawi resistance as a form of victory.
“FiSahara Zaragoza will open a large window onto the almost 50 years of resistance and persistence of the Sahrawi people: the elderly, young people and children, women and men, in Algerian exile and under Moroccan occupation; artists, activists, students and filmmakers”, says María Carrión, Executive Director of the festival. “Together with the public of Zaragoza we will celebrate this spirit of Sahrawi resistance, which is a way of overcoming the silence, indifference and complicity of the International Community with Morocco and its occupation of Western Sahara.”
This edition, organized by the NGO Nomads HRC-which carries out the international activities of FiSahara- and theAragonese Observatory for Western Sahara, in collaboration with theZaragoza City Council, will open on Friday 18 October with the screening of the award-winning Desert PHOSfate, by Sahrawi artivist Mohamed Sleiman Labat. This feature film addresses from an artistic perspective the impact of the climate crisis on the Sahrawi refugee population and how young people find creative solutions to alleviate its effects. At the same time, it denounces the Moroccan plundering of phosphates from Western Sahara occupied by Morocco and the greenwashing used by Rabat to attract international investment.
The second day (Saturday 19 October) will offer two sessions. The first will focus on Sahrawi children born in refugee camps and forced to live in an exile that seems to have no end. FiSahara will screen two short films: Little Sahara, by Emilio Martí López, an animation made in conjunction with schoolchildren from the camps, who drew their lives and dreams, which has received multiple international awards, the latest of which was the award in the Borders, Migrations and Exiles category of the 13th edition of the Festival Contra el Silencio Todas las Voces (Mexico), and Champs-Elysées, directed by Giuseppe Carrier, which portrays the broken dreams of Sahrawi youth in the Algerian hamada.
With the title Cinema and Saharawi Identity, the second session will offer a sample of the latest works produced by the students of the Abidin Kaid Saleh Audiovisual Training School. This Saharan Film School, launched by FiSahara in 2011 after the success of its film workshops, has accumulated awards such as the Special Prize at the San Sebastian Film and Human Rights Festival and the González Sinde Award of the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain.
As a novelty in this edition, FiSahara Zaragoza will extend its arms to various educational centers, such as the Andalán Secondary Education Institute (IES) and the Pilar Lorengar IES, where short films such as Little Sahara will be screened for ESO students.
From Palestine to Western Sahara: Cinema against occupation
On Sunday, October 20, FiSahara Zaragoza will conclude with the session From Palestine to Western Sahara: Cinema against occupation, a call to strengthen ties of solidarity between the Sahrawi and Palestinian causes, both affected by the close collaboration between Morocco and Israel, and fighting against occupation and separation walls, and for self-determination and the right to return.
The session will start with Mutha and the Death of Hamma Fuku, a film by Daniel Suberviola, a finalist for the 2022 Goya Awards, which, with careful photography, crudely shows the drama of the nearly eight million anti-personnel mines planted by Morocco along the 2,700 kilometres of wall that divides Western Sahara, through the story of a young Sahrawi deminer who follows in her father’s footsteps.
This will be followed by Unsubmissive (Second Prize at FiSahara 2024), the documentary directed by Laura Daudén and Miguel Ángel Herrera that tells the extraordinary resistance of Sahrawi human rights defenders such as Sultana Jaya, Elghalia Djimi, Mina Baali, Omeima Mahmud Nayern and Jadiyetu El Mohtar in the face of the atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by Morocco in the Occupied Territories.
To close three days of Sahrawi screenings, the Zaragoza Film Library will screen Roof Knocking by Iranian director Sina Salimi, which, through an intimate portrait of a woman in Gaza, illustrates the Israeli practice of bombing civilian homes and serves as a denunciation of the massive and indiscriminate bombings that Israel carries out in the strip, which has already claimed more than 41,000 lives.
