Movies Similar to LALGAM - portraits of survival

Bil'in Habibti(2006)

The Israeli filmmaker Shai Corneli Polak records the building of the 'security wall' through Palestinian territory at the village of Bil'in. The villagers protest mostly peacefully, while the Israeli army doesn't react peacefully. By now the Israeli High Court has ruled that the building of the wall was illegal.

Trump's Unlikely Superfans(2016)

Ahead of the U.S. Presidential Elections, Angela Scanlon travels across America to meet some of Donald Trump's most unlikely supporters - including a second-generation Mexican American who wants Trump to build that wall.

Three territories: a landscape, a nation, a right(2020)

Documentary that explains the current climate of political turmoil in the north of Africa caused by the embedded problem of the decolonization of Western Sahara. A region on the brink of war. The responsibility of Western governments and social media, especially France and Spain, whose foreign policy based on economic interests puts on the background moral principles. In the case of Spain also its responsibilities as administrator of the territory which has triggered a situation of chaos and violence. The film describes the current situation of Western Sahara in its three conflict zones, presents its protagonists and denounces the informative silence condemning the Saharawi people to the oblivion.

Western Sahara determined(2017)

Western Sahara is one of the most heavily mined territories in the world following decades of conflict with its neighbours. Despite a 1991 ceasefire, most Sahrawis still linger in refugee camps in Algeria because it is too dangerous to live there. Now, some brave young women have taken it upon themselves to clear their ancestral lands of landmines so their people can return.

The hidden fire(2023)

Silence always surrounds the mine, first when it explodes and then when it eternally haunts its victims. The history of the silence of this fire hidden by Morocco in the sand of Western Sahara has left more than 4,000 victims in what is considered the largest minefield in the world. Daha and Fatimetu suffered the effect of the silence of the mines, their lives changed forever, like that of the Saharawi people who, after 14 years cleaning the desert of artifacts, the rupture of the ceasefire have left the future of the contamination of their territory.

A garden that means more than a garden(2023)

Taleb, who came to a refugee camp at the age of five in 1975 and returned there after his studies abroad, tells of his life as a displaced person, his gratitude for the reception and support in Algeria, and his hope that the Sahrawis may one day return to their homeland. For Taleb, this hope drives him to actively prepare for better times: as a graduate in agricultural sciences, he conceived a successful small-scale closed-loop economy in a desert under the most difficult conditions, producing enough food for self-sufficiency.

The people of the waves(2021)

I am a girl of the waves, from a village of seafarers. Some days, I go out with my boat to the sea. But I don’t go alone. Maoimouna comes with me.

A plant in the desert(2021)

A photography workshop in the Sahrawi refugee camps shows the situation of uprooted people through their own eyes. At the same time, the direc- tor tries to reestablish contact with her little sister from a Sahrawi foster care, also affected by the in- vasion of her land.

Sahara Project: From Sant Coloma to Dajla(2006)

This film presents, through the eyes four students - Gemma, Colo, Cristian and Mireia - their experience of the trip, the feelings that moved them, the work carried out in the camps and, above all, their contribution to raising awareness of the unresolved difficulties the Sahrawi people face.

School desks in the desert(2010)

A nine-year old girl, Naha, who in day-to-day life studies primary education en Wilaya de Smara is the point of departure for this documentary. Through the her family life, teachers, those responsible for Sahrawi education and NGOS, we understand the education system in the camps causing us to be in awe of the patience of the Sahrawi people, refugees for 35 years, holding out hope for a definitive solution to the conflict. This documentary intends to introduce the viewer to the situation of the Sahrawi people in the camps through one of the most basic needs for the development of a community: chidren's education. Education in the Sahrawi refugee camps is supported by women being those that develop and strengthen the task of educating in schools.

The mirror bird(2010)

Bubisher, as well as being 'the bird of luck', is a word loaded with literary meaning in Spanish in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf. Seeing the way in which two cultures interact through small stories and tales can is striking and so is the contrast between the resilience of the young female generations and the realities of life in the desert. This documentary paints a picture of a generation of young female Sahrawis.

Land of mines(2019)

Western Sahara is a conflict region located in North West Africa. After a bloody war in the region, the land is littered with landmines and war ruminants and explosives. There are about 7 to 10 million landmines still buried there, especially in the area close to the wall built by Morocco and which separates Western Sahara into two. Landmines in the area have a huge impact on life in general; human casualties, cattle and irreversible environmental catastrophes.

In the Devil's garden(2018)

The film situates the viewer within a makeshift space of an animal market in Algeria. Drifting between feeding and waiting, one attunes to the bodies of goats and camels, the oldest companions of Arab men. As we move deeper into the desert, the site turns into a sacrifice zone and reveals its dark geopolitical secrets. The sensory ethnography film will invite you to question the banality of displacement, confinement and exploitation in an out-of-sight territory.

But They Did: The Re-entry Of The Pike River Mine(2025)

Anna Osborn and Sonia Rockhouse were forever changed when the Pike River Mine Disaster stole their loved ones, but instead of sitting down, they stood up! But They Did tells Anna and Sonia's story, following them through the period of time before and during the re-entry of the mine.

The flowers of the wall(2013)

With help from the city of Gavá, the Sahrawi painter and artist Mohamed Moulud Yeslem, presents here in the city his project “a flower for every landmine.” Through this initiative, he has mobilized schools, civil society associations, other entities and even private citizens to make flowers and bring them to be planted next to the landmines that hide the world’s longest wall, a wall constructed by Morocco in Western Sahara and which has reaped division among the Sahrawi people for over 33 years. In all, they have planted 3500 flowers, but they have also learned that they are not just planting flowers for Western Sahara, but to fight against all walls or other buriers to humankind, wherever they may be.

Nollywood, Smara(2011)

Smara is the city of dust, kingdom of sirocco, a surviving ruin of a suffocating region… Thousands of Sahrawis who fled Western Sahara after the war against Morocco (36 years ago) live in this refugee camp, located in the Sahara’s inhospitable north, in the middle of the Algerian hamada. They live here, under poor human conditions, thanks to international help. A small film cooperative fights, with barely any means, to elevate the voices of young Saharawis. It is one of the many Nollywoods (Hollywood of emptiness) found in Africa.

The Deminer(2018)

In the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, Fakhir, a father of eight, is serving in the Iraqi army. All around him, he sees innocent civilians getting injured by landmines, so he determines to disarm them with his own hands, using just a pocketknife and some wire cutters. He clears thousands of roadside bombs, mines and car bombs, knowing that every time he cuts a wire it could cost him his life—which he seems to find less important than the lives of others. In 2014, by this time having lost a leg, he starts working for the Kurdish Peshmerga, disarming boobytraps left behind by Daesh in and around Mosul. An enthusiastic home video maker, Fakhir collects hundreds of hours of footage of his day-to-day work.

Voyages au centre de la Terre : Dans les pas de Jules Verne(2023)

Musawat, inclusion in the Sahrawi camps(2014)

Education Center for disabled children located in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. Despite the precarious conditions in which this population lives since 40 years ago, the Polisario Front as the representative of the Sahrawi people has promoted inclusion as a way to avoid marginalization and discrimination of one of the most vulnerable populations within these territories: children with special needs. "Castro" is the man who devotes his life to this beautiful project fighting all odds: physical, psychic, social, economic, and even the incomprehensions of his own society. The Sahrawis are living (resisting) in one of the harshest deserts on Earth but Castro has the magic formula to achieve the inclusion of these wonderful beings in his society and in the rest of the world: MUSAWAT, EQUALITY.

Life is waiting: referendum and resistance in Western Sahara(2015)

Forty years after its people were promised freedom by departing Spanish rulers, Western Sahara remains Africa's last colony. This film chronicles the everyday violence experienced by Sahrawis living under Moroccan occupation and voices the aspirations of a desert people for whom the era of colonialist never ended.