E.F.A Abidin Kaid Saleh

The Saharawi women face the thirst of the hamada, the curse of the desert, every day. They’ve built their refuge in a land where no one could survive before. For more than forty years they’ve been holding out and taking care of their people there. They ensure every drop of water is distributed according to the needs of each family … and they wait. But there’s an even more terrible thirst in their throats, for which they find no relief.

The Sahrawi people have lived in exile for almost half a century in the driest desert of the African continent. There, where basic resources such as water are scarce, there is a film school. As the world looks the other way, a group of young filmmakers carries out a battle against oblivion.

The strength and will of a girl with physical difficulties in Sahrawi society.

In the dunes of the Sahara, a Jaima, the traditional Saharawi tent. Through the tea ritual, a woman takes us into the past and present of her people, persecuted and driven from their land. There are three teas she offers us: the first, bitter as life; the second, sweet as love; the third, mild as death. Each tea tells us a story.

For over 40 years, the Sahrawi population, as refugees, has been waiting peacefully to return to their homeland after Morocco's illegal invasion of their territory in 1976. In the Sahrawi refugee camps, located in a portion of Algerian territory, two young men meet by chance where they share a conversation that leads them to reflect on the fleetingness of life and the urgency of making dreams possible. The dream of returning home.

Teslem, Dehba and Jadija work in a fish farm in the Saharawi refugee camps. Where? In Algeria, in the middle of the desert, far away from their land. They no longer have sea, but they have fish.

This short film denounces the standards of beauty which Sahrawi women are subjected to, who use whitening products to lighten their skin, ignoring the risks that they may later incur.

L'Aarifa is the name given to a post within the political structure of the Polisario. In the Sahrawi refugee camps this post is held by women who, at the same time, have carried great weight in the conflict. Shown in this short film is the problem that confronts one of these women in between family and work.

This short film addresses the problems surrounding the appearance of narcotics in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf. These drugs are beginning to be sold in kiosks and areas close to schools, causing addictions to chemical substances among the youth.

A local film whose message is not political, but social. It's about sexual violence and society's vision of rape victims, who are scarred for life, and how they are forever haunted by the personal trauma of these events.

When you are born in refugee camps, you grow up dreaming that one day you will live in your homeland, and as time goes on, this never goes beyond being a dream... You become the father of a family, and at that moment, you have to face life to achieve self-reliance. You fight to reach your dreams and face the daily obstacles, between both worlds, you end up doing what you never thought to do.

Toufa recreates the beginnings of the Sahrawi population’s arrival in the Hamada’s arid desert. This short film tells of the suffering of three generations of Saharan women, who through their effort and sacrifice wounds of the war were healed upon their arrival in the inhospitable territory of this part of southern Algeria.

28-year-old Azman, a student in the film school Abidin Kaid Saleh, explains how he discovered film in the Sahrawi refugee camps, the difficulties he had explaining his choice of study to his family, and how his society views this career.

The story of young Ahmed Tarfi might as well be the story of the Sahrawi people’s difficulties, and particularly those of the youth. The Sahrawi people are divided by a wall of more than 2000 km in length. This Moroccan wall is not only a defensive position for the occupying power, but it is also an obstacle for the cultural and social development of the original population, and also a wall of emotions and disappointments. The story of Ahmed Tarfi, despite being fictional, could very well be the story of thousands of young Sahrawis.