Hamada - how to reinvent life in a 43 year-old refugee camp

The Spanish born upcoming director has received festival acclaim for several of his short films including No Cow on the Ice, Yellow Brick Road and Rust.

His feature debut Hamada won the Genève Post-Production Award at Visions du Réel and Mecas Award for Best Work in Progress at Las Palmas Film Festival. The film tells of the Sahrawis, one the world’s most forgotten people, abandoned in a refugee camp in the middle of the desert ever since Morocco drove them out of Western Sahara 43 years ago.

Hamada means a desert rocky land mostly devoid of sand. For the Sahrawis, it refers to emptiness, or lifelessness. The central characters are a group of young friends, Sidahmed, Zaara and Taher, who spend their days fixing cars, even though they can’t really take them anywhere, fighting for political change without any response from the international community and dreaming of a better future They use the power of creativity to expand beyond the borders of the camp.

The film is produced by Sweden’s Momento Film, in co-production with Germany’s Maja.de and Norway’s Fuglene, with support from the Swedish Film Institute, the Norwegian Film Institute, SVT, DR, Aftenposten and Fritt Ord. Deckert Distriburion handles world sales.

The plight of the Sahrawis community is little known by the general public. When and how did you first hear about them?
Eloy Domínguez Serén: The very first time I heard about the Sahrawis was when I was 13, and going to school in Spain. I was struck by a few lines in a history book about people from Western Sahara, who were speaking Spanish, but not able to live in their land. Years later, as an adult, I continued to read and learn as much as possible about the Sahrawis.

Could you explain the unique situation of the Sahrawis who seem to have set up a kind of self-proclaimed state, with some economic and political activity, within their five refugee camps in Western Sahara, administered by the UNHCR and NGOs?
EDS: Western Sahara is often referred to as Africa’s last colony. It’s a complicated political situation, but basically Western Sahara was a Spanish colony until 1975. After that, while the indigenous Sahrawi people were hoping to proclaim self-governance, the kingdom of Morocco and Mauritania both claimed that the territory was theirs. In 1976, there was a tripartite deal between Spain, Morocco, Mauritania that transferred administrative control of Western Sahara to Mauritania and Morocco.

A Sahrawi liberation movement, the Polisario started a war that lasted from 1975 to 1991. Mauritania withdrew from the conflict in 1979, and there was a cease fire with Morocco in 1991, with a condition to hold a referendum for self-determination of the Sahrawis, but that never happened. In the meantime, Algeria support the Sahwari Polisario Front and offered them to establish a camp in the Tindouf Province.

Today, the camp holds around 150,000 Sahrawis. Many families are split between the camps and the Moroccan occupied territories of Western Sahara and have not seen each other for decades.

Wasn’t the Sahrawis also featured in your 2014 short film Yellow Brick Road?
EDS: Yes. While living in Sweden, I learnt at the time that there was a film school in the Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria, created by a Spanish NGO. I went there two months to teach filmmaking and Spanish.

With a small camera, I started to film the community interacting with cars, that have a big significance to them-memory, longing, identity. The Land Rovers in particular are very important to them-they even have songs dedicated to them! The cars are now at the heart of generational conflicts, with older generations attached to Land Rovers, as they were used during the war as improvised tanks and transport for families during the exodus, while younger generations prefer Mercedes cars as symbols of wealth and success.

What did you personally find the most fascinating about the Sahrawis and want to tell audiences with your film Hamada?
EDS: The conflict between Morocco and the nationalist Polisario Front has been going on for 43 years, but is not well-known in the Western world. There has been news reportages about the conflict, but this is a film from a new angle, portraying the Sahrawis’ plight through a more human and intimate story.

I wanted to focus on the younger generation, born in a land that they are not allowed to claim as theirs. They are educated, but after their studies, there is little work prospective and future for them. It’s heart-breaking to see those youngsters between 20 -30, living in a limbo. They are a lost generation.

The two main characters in the film Sidahmed - the car mechanic/driver/painter and his friend Zaara, the outspoken young woman, dream of a better life, like any youngster. Was it hard to find those strong characters who bring much humour to their hopeless situation, and how did you work on the storyline?
EDS: I stayed eight months in total with the Sahrawi community, between 2014-2017, trying to find a way to ‘invent’ each day and create a story from their monotonous life in the camp. On one hand, they have nothing to do, and on the other hand, they can do anything.

My two main characters Sidahmed and Zaara were close friends. Sidahmed is the eldest of a large family; he feels the pressure to provide for his family and tries to escape to Europe to find work. He is a bit melancholic, reflective. On the other hand, Zaara is more humorous, pragmatic, with attainable goals. She wants to stay in the camp and tries to get a job, learn how to drive to gain independence. I chose them because of their very different approaches to their hopeless situation.

What were the biggest challenges during filming?
EDS: I did most of the filming totally on my own as I felt it was the most appropriate approach for such an intimate project, requiring trust. That meant that I had to overcome many physical and technical challenges. I had limited mobility and had to carry a heavy camera, under very hot weather; it was also difficult in terms of sound recording, as there is a lot of wind in the desert. Also, I didn’t speak their language, so I would guess what they were saying, but their energy was easy to understand.

How scripted were the scenes?
EDS: There was never really a narration nor a script. With each character, I would ask them: what do you want to do today? What would be interesting? They would propose situations and I would follow. It was an active collaboration with them.

The film has a beautiful cinematography…
EDS: I love camera work. I knew I would have to do both sound and camera work and decided to look for a specific framing, to direct the action within that frame. Therefore, most shots are like still shots, long takes, It was mostly a practical and aesthetic decision.

How was your collaboration with your producers at Momento Film?
EDS: They had produced my short film Yellow Brick Road. They were very supportive at every stage. We discussed the logistics of the shooting and the creative aspect, to the editing. I edited for almost a year, then a Spanish editor - Ana Pfaff came on board.

How do you feel about attend IDFA’s First Appearance competition?
EDS: I feel a strong responsibility with this film, and it’s an amazing opportunity to make this conflict visible to the world. I want to make people know what the Sahwaris want, feel, what they dream of and laugh about. IDFA is the best place with a strong arthouse audience, and industry platform.

What’s next?
EDS: My next Swedish film The Darker it Gets is still in early stages. It is set in the Arctic circle in northern Norway. My idea is to capture the midnight sun phenomena and its effects on people. Momento Film will produce it.