Free access movie “SAHARA, la voix des martyrs” by M. Tabet and S. Boulay (2020)

A movie directed by Michel Tabet and Sébastien Boulay, produced by CEPED (Paris Cité University – IRD) and ERC Cap Sahara Project
“SAHARA, les voix des martyrs” (1h12) – 2020

Movie avalaible here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA_RDZJixq4&ab_channel=Ceped-CentrePopulation%26D%C3%A9veloppement

• SYNOPSIS

This 75min-long film was produced as part of the European Research Council (ERC) ‘CapSahara’ programme. It takes place in the Sahrawi refugee camps that have existed since 1975 near Tindouf, in South-West Algeria, and deals with the legacy of mass violence victims among the Sahrawi population, the creation of martyr figures and the political meaning of sacrifice nowadays. It takes us on a filmed investigation conducted by two anthropologists and their Saharawi companion among the families of martyrs and those seriously wounded in the Sahara war (1975-1991). As the film unfolds, it tells the story of a rehabilitation center for the wounded known to all by the enigmatic name of Al-Madrasa, ‘the school’. In this school, improvised in the early 1980s, in the midst of the Sahara war, hundreds of civil servants, teachers and executives from the young Saharan state were trained, a few kilometers away from the seat of government in Rabouni.

Through the story of this center and during this Saharan roadtrip, it is the story of those who sacrificed themselves for the liberation of their land that unfolds, the living conditions of the refugees and those close to them (caretakers and families) that emerge, the memory of the Sahrawi martyrs that emerges from the poems composed and set to music in their honor, and the question of the transmission of the political struggle between three generations that runs through the discussions.

• ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Michel Tabet is a Franco-Lebanese anthropologist and film-maker whose approach lies at the crossroads between documentary and social sciences. He has devoted numerous works to religious rituals in the Arab world (Lebanon, Syria, Algeria) and worked with musicians and dancers on experimental projects. He regularly collaborates with experts and researchers, notably from the CNRS and the Institute of Research for Development (IRD), to develop film surveys. He also works on issues relating to civil society and democracy. His documentaries focus on the ways in which people use their bodies and their words to inhabit and create worlds.

Sébastien Boulay is an anthropologist, lecturer at the University of Paris and member of UMR 196 CEPED (Centre Population & Développement). He has been conducting research in Mauritania since 1999 and in Western Sahara since 2011. His current work focuses on the role of artistic productions (particularly satirical and humorous, but also elegiac) and new media in the political struggles underway in the region.