Film stars Viggo Mortensen, Oona Chaplin and Ariadna Gil will be among hundreds of actors, directors and international visitors who will join thousands of refugees for the 12th edition of the world’s most remote film festival.
Held in the Sahrawi refugee camps deep in the desert, the Western Sahara International Film Festival - known as FiSahara – will run from April 28 to May 3 and boast a world class line-up of cinema and big name bands.
In addition there will be numerous workshops, debates and roundtable discussions exploring this year’s theme of Universal Justice led by global human rights figures such as Nora de Cortiñas, president of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo of Argentina.
De Cortiñas will present the award-winning film about the struggle to discover the fate of “disappeared” grandchildren in Argentina, The Life of Estela whilst “Lord of the Rings” actor, Mortensen, will screen his new film, Loin des Hommes (Far From Men) set during the Algerian war.
Other highlights of the film programme include Oscar-winning Timbuktu, acclaimed Lebanese comedy Ghadi, the Bedouin road movie, Theeb and the award-winning Granito: How to Catch a Dictator which will be presented by its director Pamela Yates.
Films are projected at night onto huge outdoor screens beneath the stars. As well as international features, documentaries, animations and short films, the festival will also screen a range of films made by the refugees themselves in the film school set-up in 2011 as part of the Cinema for the Saharawi People project. The best of these Saharawi films will be selected to be screened as part of the Raindance Film Festival in London later this year.
At its heart FiSahara is a human rights film festival which aims to raise awareness of the plight the refugees from Western Sahara who this year mark 40 years of living in the camps. The festival, part of the Human Rights Film Network and whose partners include Movies that Matter, WITNESS and Raindance, not only offers entertainment and educational opportunities for the refugees but serves to remind them that they have not been forgotten. This year’s festival will also coincide with an important vote on Western Sahara at the United Nations Security Council.
Javier Bardem, whose visit to FiSahara inspired him to make an award-winning documentary about the situation of the people of Western Sahara, described the film festival as “little short of a miracle". Speaking in London earlier this year, film director Pedro Almodovar said “It’s very important for the Saharawi refugees to see films from around the world. To support them is not a question of humanitarianism. It’s about humanity, about having heart.”
