NY Times: Western Sahara
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009It’s been a busy summer in movement: Algeria, Barcelona, Ireland, Vietnam, Laos, Tajikistan, Riga and Prague, with several returns back to San Francisco and New York in between.
Here is a story and photographs from the August 2nd, 2009 New York Times Sunday Arts section about a film festival held in a refugee camp in southwest Algeria. I had to take a charter plane from Madrid, and then drive 3 hours across the Sahara Desert with other festival goers to a very dry, hot and isolated camp of 25,000 Saharawi refugees. We were put up in homestays, ate lots of camel, drank lots of tea. The festival was organized by Spanish filmmakers to raise awareness about the conflict over Western Sahara, which the Saharawi people and Morocco have been embroiled in for three decades. A little known issue, a rather sad situation, and deserving of more ink than I was allowed to give it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/movies/02isaa.html
