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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.
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.
Young Mohamed Dih, who in Seville, returns to his birthplace – a refugee camp in Western Sahara. Time flows differently here: the times of the day are marked by calls to prayer and the seasons – by the rainfall. When a torrential downpour destroys his family’s home, the protagonist stays in the camp for longer to help to rebuild it.
Inma (24) is determined to win a marathon in the Sahara Desert. But her motives run deeper than the physical challenge. A few months ago, she came across adoption papers that revealed the birthplace of her biological mother: Laayoune, Western Sahara. Having never heard of the country, she decides to train for an international marathon that takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Northern Africa. It is the perfect opportunity for her to learn about a history she never faced growing up in Spain.
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.
Their desert was not the same since they last saw it. The dunes kept memories of a childhood bathed in sun and sand, when minutes passed by in a stalling time. It has been long since they moved to the city, in search of a better future. They left, switching their tents for high buildings in busy boulevards, bearing in mind their responsibility towards their society. Each step marked by the commitment to make of their training the future of their people. It is the outcry of souls deep-rooted in tradition, in culture, in the stories of their sand. The desert was not the same, it may have never been. This documental show how they left to change it.
Ali Salem Hamudi Mohamed - Yahdih, was born in 1955 in El Aaiún (Western Sahara). He completed his secondary schooling in the "Spanish" Sahara. A scholarship allowed him to enrol at the Universidad de la Peninsula in 1975, but Morocco's invasion of the Sahara led him to return to the city of his birth and go into exile with his people, participating in the resistance and helping to organise the Tindouf Refugee Camps (Algeria). In 1980, the Polisario Front and the Government of Cuba offered him the opportunity to study Architecture at the University of Havana. On his return to the Camps in 1985 he worked for the SADR's Department of Construction. He designed more than twenty public buildings, including town halls, schools and nursery schools, and also collaborated with international aid organisations to build hospitals and training colleges. All of these buildings were built collectively by the Saharan people. ;In 1999 he emigrated to Spain. His family joined him five years later.
Bidun Hawiya is a documentary short film that intends to make society reflect on the Sahrawi people’s loss of identity, as they are forced to obtain a document in order to have access to certain essential rights. Not only does the Spanish government make the entry of a population that used to be Spanish very difficult, but it also intends to use these peoples’ identity to bury a situation that has been uncomfortable for them for 41 years, thus solving a problem that won’t be fixed until it has disappeared.
Ismael, Hindu and Bachir are three Sahrawis living in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands). They tell us about their lives away from their home country (Western Sahara), their own personal history and experiences... and the challenges they face in an island they consider something of a second home. This short film combines the three main characters' impressions with archive images of the Dignity Camp, of the Tindouf camps, and images of the Western Sahara in the mid- 70's. A Canary Islands production shooted in Gáldar and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.