Addressing a meeting in a refugee camp in the desert in Western Sahara recently, former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Francesco Bastagli described the ongoing 35-year occupation of Western Sahara as “a simple problem made complicated by the collusion or indifference of a small number of powerful nations”.
Bastagli, who resigned from the UN in 2006 in protest over the organisation’s inaction on Western Sahara, was back in the refugee camps to attend the Sahara International Film Festival, known as FiShara, from May 2-8. The festival – the eighth such event – took place in a camp 130 miles from the nearest town deep in the Algerian desert. The festival aims to offer entertainment and educational opportunities to the refugees as well as raise awareness of a forgotten humanitarian crisis. The refugees are Saharawis from Western Sahara – occupied unlawfully by Morocco in 1976 – and an estimated 165,000 of them have lived in four camps for more than three decades.
Bastagli expressed frustration at the UN Security Council’s failure to extend the mandate of the Peace Keeping force in occupied Western Sahara, to include human rights. “MINURSO, the UN’s peacekeeping force, is the only contemporary peace keeping force without such a mandate”, he pointed out.
“Whether it’s conflict prevention, basic human rights or responsibility to protect, Western Sahara is the long-neglected obligation of the international community. The Security Council can hardly be credible in its concern over Libya and other countries in the region while continuing to ignore the tragic plight of the Saharawi people.”
Bastagli said that there is an urgent need to drain “the vast reservoir of indifference around the world on Western Sahara” and to build international pressure on the Moroccan government over the issue. Ruphus Matibe, head of a delegation from South Africa’s Department of Arts and Culture also attending the film festival, agreed. “The liberation movement in South Africa had a multi-pronged approach”, he said. “Prolonged international pressure made a huge difference to the ANC’s ultimate victory.”
As well as political support, the Saharawi struggle for self-determination, the festival also offered cultural and financial support for the refugees. Speaking on the final day, actor Carlos Bardem announced that his brother Javier had donated 10,000 euros to help fund a new film school. The school, which opened its doors on May 8, will give up to 20 refugees each year a chance to learn about all aspects of film-making. Carlos Bardem was among dozens of actors, producers and directors present for the opening ceremony. Javier Bardem, who visited the festival in 2008, sent his support and regrets that he was unable to attend this year’s event.
Set up by award-winning Peruvian documentary filmmaker Javier Corcuera, the festival is paid for through a mix of private funding and institutional sponsorship including money from the Spanish Ministry of Culture. Visitors to the festival live with refugee families, sharing their homes and their food. Films are screened at night in a spacious area in the centre of the camp where a multiplex-sized screen is surrounded by tents for workshops, exhibitions and indoor screenings. The festival programme included an eclectic mix of over 20 films from around the world including films made about and by the Saharawi people. Watching films while sitting on the sand beneath the stars as an occasional camel strolls passed provides a surreal but agreeable viewing experience.
“I liked the film about the boy in the sea”, said 14-year-old Sidi Hassan, referring to Jermal, an Indonesian film about a 12-year-old boy sent to work on an isolated fishing platform in the Malacca Straits. “He was surrounded by water just as we are surrounded by sand.”
At a dusty red carpet ceremony on the final evening, the White Camel award for best picture was picked up by film director Gerardo Olivares for his 2010 film Among the Wolves. Actor Luis Tosar picked up the Jury Prize for the Spanish movie Even the Rain. If there had been an audience prize, it would probably have gone to Al-Yidar (The Wall), a documentary about the 1,500-mile wall in the desert built by Morocco that divides Western Sahara in two.
“I have been to the wall to protest, but landmines stopped me from getting too close”, writer Admed Deidi told me. “This film made me see the wall in a new way.”
Some of the films shown were made by refugees themselves and 22-year-old Najla Mahamed believes that Saharawi are naturally good storytellers. “Living in camps has forced us to develop our imaginations”, she says. “From your earliest days, you are forced to imagine your homeland, As you grow up that imagined place grows up with you.”
Carlos Bardem was given a traditional tea set to give to his brother: a gift from the Saharawi people to Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz to celebrate the recent birth of their child.
“Each time, I leave these the camps I feel like a thief”, Bardem told me as we prepared to depart. “I arrive bearing gifts and goodwill, but leave so much the richer taking away lessons from the refugees about how to live in dignity and how to never give up the fight for your rights.”
Stefan Simanowitz is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. He is chair of the Free Western Sahara Network and helped to organise this year’s film festival
