Sahara International Film Festival

Sahara International Film Festival
Festival de Cine del Sáhara
الصحراء السينمائي الدولي

Location	Wilaya of Dakhla, Sahrawi refugee camps, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic / Algeria
Founded	November 2003
Awards	White Camel
Language	International
Website	http://www.festivalsahara.com (Spanish)

The Spanish actress Verónica Forqué at the 2007 edition festival.

The Sahara International Film Festival, also known as FiSahara, is an annual event which takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps, at the South West corner of Algeria, near the border with Western Sahara. It is the only film festival in the world taking place in a refugee camp.^[1] The first three years the festival was held alternately in the Wilaya of Smara, Wilaya of Ausserd and Wilaya of El Aaiun, but since 2007 the FiSahara had stayed in the Wilaya of Dakhla. The event is backed by the Polisario Front,^[2] but largely organised and funded by donors from Spain, the former colonial power in Western Sahara, attracting support from Spanish film celebrities as Penélope Cruz and Pedro Almodóvar.^[3] This Festival is an initiative to bring film as an entertainment and cultural form to the thousands of Sahrawis whose community has lived for more than thirty years in relative isolation in the Algerian desert, being the only film festival in the world taking place in a refugee camp. The first festival was in large part organised by Peruvian film director Javier Corcuera.^[2]

The festival has the two-fold aim of providing cultural entertainment and educational opportunities to refugees, and of raising awareness of the plight of the Sahrawi people, who have been exiled from their native Western Sahara for more than three decades. Western Sahara, “Africa’s last colony,” was given to Morocco and Mauritania by the Spanish when they withdrew in 1976. The Moroccans subsequently annexed the entire territory in 1979, in defiance of a ruling from the International Court of Justice. A sixteen-year war ensued between the Moroccans and the native Sahrawi independence movement, the Polisario Front. Under the terms of a 1991 UN ceasefire agreement, a referendum for self-determination was promised, but has been blocked by Morocco. In the meantime an estimated 165,000 refugees continue to live in four large camps in the inhospitable Algerian desert.

Home to around 30,000 refugees, Dakhla is the most remote of the camps, located 175 km away from the nearest city, Tindouf.^[4] It has no electricity or paved roads and is dependent on outside supplies of food and water.^[5]

Musicians like Fermín Muguruza,^[6][7] Manu Chao,^[1] Macaco,^[8] Iván Ferreiro,^[9] El Chojin^[10] or Tomasito^[11] had also performed in concerts during the festival.

In 2010, a twinning agreement was signed between the FiSahara and the San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival.^[12]

White Camel Winners

The White Camel (Arabic: الإبل الأبيض‎) is the festival's highest prize, awarded for the best film by election of the spectators.^[13] It consists on a white female camel, which is traditionally donated to the refugee family who had hosted the actors or director of the winner film during the festival. Instead, the winners take home a trophy depicting a white camel and a desert rose.

Year	Date	Film	Nationality	Director
2003	20–23 November	The Living Forest	Spain	Ángel de la Cruz
				Manolo Gómez
2004	December (Not Held)	N/A	N/A	N/A
2005	3–6 March	Madame Brouette	Senegal  France  Canada	Moussa Sene Absa
2006	5–9 April	The Story of the Weeping Camel	Mongolia  Germany	Byambasuren Davaa
				Luigi Farloni
2007	10–15 April	Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest	France  Belgium  Spain  Italy	Michel Ocelot
2008	17–20 April	It's a Free World...	United Kingdom	Ken Loach
2009	5–10 May	Che: Part 2	United States  Spain  France	Steven Soderbergh
2010	26 April-2 May	The Problem	Spain	Jordi Ferrer
				Pablo Vidal
2011	2–8 May	Entrelobos	Spain  Germany	Gerardo Olivares
2012	1–6 May	Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony	Spain	Alvaro Longoria
2013	8–13 October	Mayibuye I	South Africa	Milly Moabl
2014	29 April–4 May	Legna: Habla el Verso Saharaui[14]	Sahrawi Republic  Spain	Juan Robles
				Bahia Awah
				Juan Carlos Gimeno
2015	28 April-3 May	Granito: How to Nail a Dictator	United States	Pamela Yates

Guest Country

Since 2006, some years the festival elect a country to be guest in the event. In such cases, films from the guest country are screened and related events take place along the other acts in the festival.

Year	Guest Country/Continent
2006	Cuba[15][16]
2009	Algeria[17][18]
2010	South Africa[19][20]
2011	Venezuela[21][22]
2012	Mexico[23][24]
2013	United States[25]
2014	South Africa[26]

External links

• Objective FiSahara Donostia.org – 24-page book about the FiSahara, with texts by Juan Carlos Izagirre, Eduardo Galeano, Paul Laverty, Javier Corcuera, Javier Bardem and others.
• SÁHARA OCCIDENTAL: LA REVOLUCIÓN DEL CINE O EL CINE DE LA REVOLUCIÓN by David Bollero Real (Spanish)
• Prospect Magazine – Blogs Preview of 6th FISahara

References