This is a people who are dying of thirst; they want to drink the sea but they don't let them. Are doomed to the sand, to the dust of oblivion and they walk as one walks in the desert, slowly, to nowhere, because the only oasis where to bathe your dreams dried up is 40 years. The past of the Saharawis is a mirage, its present an infamous wall curd of mines, But in the future, There, His joy persists.
They prefer to anchor a future, Instead of lamenting with the nostalgia of other times and on that path ahead they are not alone.
The Fisahara is a film outburst, an idea so delusional that has ended up working. For 10 years people from the world of cinema, activists and volunteers have determined to maintain a festival in the refugee field more left of all, Well, Quijotes do not understand logic. Dajla is a city, or a territory, or a site -I don't know how to define it-, Located about four hours on the city of Tinduf, In southwest Algeria. Boxes with projectors arrive every year, movies, hopes, screens, trucks, solidarity, Actresses, clowns and voices to shout to the world what takes place there.
The past of the Saharawis is a mirage, its present an infamous wall curd of mines, But in the future, There, His joy persists.
And we arrived at my partner Yray and I, with the intention of recording the magic of a festival with a vocation to disappear, because it will not be necessary to dream fiction when justice is done in the real world.
The Saharawis is a repeated story, Of those in which someone starts talking about the "others" and ends with a wall of almost 3.000 km. Walls are usually raised with the same ease that memory is lost. The mines that accompany the fence, When they explode, They never make enough noise and that is that the world is being deaf. Many governments, From looking for the other way they will end a chronic humanitarian torticolis. Morocco has removed the sea, But it is international passivity that takes away the desire.
But I don't want to talk about the Polisario Front, nor of political claims. I did not take a Palestinian kufiyya to the desert, I didn't even hear the protests on after a lectern, were actors or ministers, I can't mix flags that do not share causes at all. Sometimes, of so much mix revolutions, We end up importing slogans already worn by others.
Sometimes, of so much mix revolutions, We end up importing slogans already worn by others.
That is why it seems much more eloquent, eg, His way of dancing under the jaimas. Young people need to dance, even in a world of sand, dance in the shadow of that desert that cannot with them, dance for a morning without so goat or so much sun. Most do not know their home, The Western Sahara, Barriers free, But they provide with the sweetest tea that I have tried in my life to see the confines of their land one day, reach the coast. Today they comfort that they have left them, Far from the crash of the waves, But they keep dancing because faith survives the Eternal Sopor of Dajla.
For five days we were recording the dignity of a festival that congregates the local population and there is nothing more moving than a child's gaze discovering a cinema that lacks cinema. An immense screen under the stars and the pundonor of those who have mounted such a dislate are enough to work the miracle. Women hide under melfas, But his eyes tell everything. They look at the movies with a universal emotion and adolescents believe heroes watching "the life of Pi", A film that tells the story of the Saharawi, But vice versa. At the end of the day, This is a shipwrecked town in the desert, that seeks the sea with despair.
This is a shipwrecked town in the desert, that seeks the sea with despair.
We witnessed the homeland parades of the local population and camel races. The clowns juggled to entertain the children. The Sahara was filled every day with mosquitoes and journalists, As children running, of graffiti artists rejoiceing the facades, of singers encouraging the afternoons. Activists taught workshops on how to tell the story of this town, How to get to the heart of the world and envive consciences. We recorded all that, we dragged the tripod and the cameras to 40 ºC, across, Without understanding that it is possible to turn the sand into a party.
Then we retired to sleep with a family, What more than welcomed us, I watched for us. They honored us with camel meat, With roast chicken and Cus cus, With fruits, Sweet tea and with abundance water. The Saharawi share the Muslim hospitality and the solidarity of the desert which makes each jaima a home for anyone. I did not hear resent in their conversations, nor saw fuss in gestures. They smile more than us, showing teeth punished by excess sugar and scarcity of dentists. They dream of another reality, Because there is no alternative; That piece of Algeria is not a future, But there they continue, of time, Elders and children with 40 more years.
That piece of Algeria is not a future, But there they continue, of time, Elders and children with 40 more years.
After almost a week, Our flight took off from Tinduf with a lot of journalists and organizers and cinema people and documentaries and we wear sand in our pockets and a good dose of silences for the return path.
From the window I could see how that desert was behind despot, who does not want to finish and silence the cry of men. I shook me to think about the solitude that will have left after the festival in Dajla, No clown or movies. Only desert. I think that was the time to stay, In the after, When there are no parties or cus cus. When young people dance, Without the presence of the foreigner, Only they dreaming of a world hugged by the sea.
