Smara's smile

A documentary that shows the current state of territorial limbo in which the Sahrawi people live through the gaze of those who arrive and leave, those who resist, of the occupiers and the occupieds; a multifaceted view of what is behind the facts.

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.

Daniel Mulholland, a master-builder uses LEGO to reshape his life after being diagnosed with PTSD. The film highlights the relationship between mental health and a simple act of kindness, showing how something as small as a plastic brick can be life-changing for oneself and others.

Tebraa is the song of the women of the Sahara desert. Songs of love or lamentation that they sing when they are alone. This collective documentary made by a group of Andalusian women tells the life and injustices that Sahrawi women experience in the adverse conditions of exile and in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

In the most inhospitable terrain of the legendary Saharan desert, lies the refugee camps of the Sahrawi Arab Republic. It is there that 5 young Sahrawis, through their drawings, reveal their hopes and dreams to us.

In the middle of Western Sahara desert, where no water, no trees, no animals live but a bunch of refugees, struggling in poverty to survive the harsh habitat, the least of the problem one might face is the environmental crisis.

The documentary gives as overview of the history of the Sahrawi people and their current situation in the refugee camps and in the liberated territories of Western Sahara. It describes how water, education, land etc. are managed.

Atu is a 12-year-old Saharawi girl who comes to Valencia every summer to escape the suffocating desert summer in exile. Two opposing worlds between a conflict that has driven hundreds of thousands of people away from Western Sahara forcing them to live in southwestern Algeria. At her young age, with little resources and no homeland, she courageously faces the future.

Habub and Marcos establish a relationship through “video letters” during the wintertime. Through these videos, we see what daily life is like in the Sahrawi refugee camps and, more importantly, how important the friendship between these two kids is.

Women are the protagonists of this documentary. Girls and women of varied ages tell us the difficulties of living their whole lives in refuge and their desires for the future.

This film takes a candid, inside look at the world of juvenile delinquency. We are shown the tough existence on the streets of Montreal, but it could be any city in North America. Some boys as young as ten years of age talk about their lives of crime, the things that are important to them, and the hopes they hold for the future.

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.

Becoming a father is an extraordinary adventure in a man's life, but it is also a real physiological metamorphosis that science is only just beginning to reveal. Researchers from multiple disciplines are lifting the veil on these changes taking place in men who are in contact with young children, and their discoveries are astonishing. By tracing the thread of evolution, the film reveals that these deep, long-ignored bonds between men and children are very ancient. And that they are just waiting for the right context to fully express themselves.

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.

This is the true story of Fetim Salam, a Saharawi refugee falsely portrayed as a slave in the Australian documentary 'Stolen'. Australian filmmakers, Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw, travel to the Saharawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria in 2007 and claim to discover 20,000 slaves in the camps run by the independence movement Polisario Front. Refugees are outraged for being portrayed as slaves, and humanitarian aid workers are incredulous about these allegations as they know the camps intimately. Filmmaker Carlos Gonzalez retraces their steps in search of the truth and finds a web of lies, misinformation and Moroccan operatives reshaping the truth.