The refugee camp of Ausserd yesterday experienced a grand opening of the XIX edition of FiSahara. More than a thousand people from some twenty countries and from the various Saharawi camps (wilayas) in the Algerian Sahara gathered around the Desert Screen of a festival whose slogan this year Walking to our land: The radical hope of return, vindicates the international right of return of indigenous peoples.
The afternoon began with the official opening of LeFrig, which was attended by the president of SADR (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), Brahim Ghali; its Prime Minister Bucharaya Hamudi Beyun and the Minister of Culture and Youth, Musa Salma, among other authorities. The crowd embraced Ghali throughout his tour of this exhibition of traditional tents in which the different wilayas and dairas (districts) of Ausserd compete during the week in popular arts and Saharawi uses and customs (typical food, musicand dances, traditional games…).
This inauguration served as a perfect prologue to the opening ceremony of this edition in which once again the audience enjoyed an immersive experience in the Saharawi culture. The performances of the Saharawi groups Luali and Tirs and the popular singer Mofid Ahmed enlivened the evening towards sunset to give way to the projections.
Aminetu, the film that narrates the 32-day hunger strike led by the Saharawi human rights defender Aminetu Haidar, illustrated the complicity of the Spanish and Moroccan governments in that diplomatic crisis and how the world of culture and the Spanish people sided with the Alternative Nobel Prize winner. During the presentation of the film, its director, Lucía Muñoz, expressed heartfelt gratitude to Haidar and “to the Saharawi women who have taught me so much”.
After the screening of this tribute to what is already a symbol of the Saharawi struggle and peaceful resistance, FiSahara projected its gaze on two other persecuted and oppressed peoples, such as the Armenians and Lebanese with the film Ara Malikian, a life between the ropes. The documentary by Nata Moreno, winner of a Goya Award in 2020, narrates the life of this violin virtuoso of Lebanese origin and Armenian descent who, together with the prestigious Afro-Cuban pianist Iván ‘Melon’ Lewis, will star in the closing concert of this edition on May 2.
“I knew the life of Ara Malikian 15 years ago,” said Nata Moreno during her presentation, “and it was clear to me that it had to be told. What I didn’t imagine is that it could be seen here and that gives meaning to what we do.” An emotional Ara Malikian, for his part, thanked the Saharawi people for their great welcome and, embodying the spirit of this edition, denounced these dark times with 122 million refugees and deportees.
The programme of screenings was closed by the award-winning Dissonance (Raquel Larrosa), nominated this year for the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short Film, which describes the courage of the women volunteers who defuse the anti-personnel mines with which Morocco has planted more than 2,700 kilometres of the wall dividing Western Sahara; and The Deadly Spectre, a film by the Saharawi filmmaker Mohamed Dchira which, from the occupied territories, crudely shows the way in which the Moroccan occupying forces introduce drugs to try to destroy the Saharawi youth.
El apoyo al pueblo saharaui, más vivo que nunca
After this first day, there is still a week of vindication and defense of human rights through cinema, with a billboard with more than 25 films and participants with a large Palestinian representation (the political coordinator of Progressive International Layla Hazaineh, the filmmaker Rami Abba or the activist Sarah Sayegh); the Swedish filmmakers Anna Klara and the Åhrén Alex Veitch, the Sami filmmaker Johannes Van, the Algerian activist and researcher Raouf Farrah, the Saharawi filmmaker Mohamedsalem Werad or the artivist born in the Saharawi refugee camps Mohamed Sleiman Labat, among many others.
In addition, and as has been the case since the first edition in 2003, Spanish cinema has turned to this new edition, with the actors Patricia López Arnáiz, Fariba Sheikhan, Almudena Salort, Críspulo Cabezas and Guillermo Toledo, as well as the director Fernando León de Aranoa and the Peruvian director and co-founder of FiSahara Javier Corcuera, travelling to Ausserd.
With five days ahead of screenings, there will still be moments of great emotion among the Saharawi public with the tributes to the singer Mariem Hassan with the films HAIYU and Mariem; with the premiere of the film produced by Javier Bardem and Mark Ruffalo All We Were, or the research project Return to Al-Ma’in, the result of the collaboration between Forensic Architecture and Palestine Land Society of the academic Dr. Salman Abu Sitta. On the other hand, the students of the Abidin Kaid Saleh Audiovisual Training School, created by FiSahara in 2011 in the Boujdour camp, will share their latest short films made in their career to become future Saharawi filmmakers.
The little ones will be able to enjoy the Mini FiSahara children’s cycle, thanks to the collaboration of Miyu Distribution and its animated shorts, this year also featuring the screening of the Oscar-nominated Robot Dreams and the itinerant performances of Pallasos in Rebeldía. This year FiSahara recovers the friendly football match of its previous editions, in which the local team Ittihad Sports Club will face the visiting team arrived at the festival and a musical evening will be held again in the dunes in which the international and Saharawi public dance together at sunset.
