Iconic anti-apartheid fighter Andrew Mlangeni, imprisoned with Nelson Mandela for 26 years, has announced today that he will attend the Sahara International Film Festival held in a refugee camp in the Sahara desert later this month.

Mlangeni, now 89, who was sentenced with Mandela at the Rivonia trials and lived beside him in Robben Island and Pollsmoor prison will join hundreds of international actors, directors and cinephiles and thousands of Saharawi refugees. Now in its 11th edition, the festival, known as FiSahara, aims to both raise awareness of the plight of the refugees, displaced from their native Western Sahara for nearly four decades by an unlawful Moroccan occupation, and to empower them to tell their own story through film by leaving a lasting legacy of film-making skills and equipment in the camps.

This year’s festival will hold a special tribute to Mandela with specially chosen films, workshops and a performance by legendary South African musicians Jonas Mosa Gwangwa and Mariam Hassan. Mr Mlangeni will take part in a roundtable discussion with others include the Saharawi human rights defender, Mohammed Daddach, known as the Saharawi Mandela. Fittingly Nelson Mandela showed great solidarity with the Saharawi whose struggle he described as one “to achieve the freedom and self-determination that are rightfully theirs.”

“We are deeply honoured that Andrew Mlangeni will be attending this year’s festival" said Maria Carrion, FiSahara’s executive director. "Many of Nelson Mandela friend old friends admitted to feeling a void since their old friend’s passing. But despite the loss Mlangeni's fighting spirit is still strong and he is filling the void in the best way he knows how: by battling against injustice and oppression wherever it might be”

Partnered by Amnesty International's Movies that Matter film festival, Robert Kennedy Foundation, Bertha Foundation and the Raindance Film Festival, this year’s programme includes over 30 films from around the world including documentaries to animations, short films to blockbusters. Oscar-nominated films Dirty Wars and The Square (Al Midan) will both be screened, with David Riker, screenwriter for Dirty Wars facilitating one of the many workshops. Other programme highlights include Argentinian 3-D comedy-animation Foosball, and Palestine’s first ever 3-D animated movie, The Scarecrow. It will also offer its trademark Saharawi-themed section with films dedicated to the Western Sahara, some made by students from FiSahara’s film school.

Festival guests will fly to Tindouf, Algeria, and travel over 100 miles in into the desert to Dakhla refugee camp, home to around 30,000 refugees. They will stay with refugee families, living in their homes and enjoying unique Saharawi hospitality. Film screenings will take place after sundown, projected onto multiplex-sized screens.

Javier Bardem, who has attended the festival said that "unlike most things planted in the desert, the FiSahara film festival has taken root and continues to grow and flourish. This, the 11th edition of FiSahara, demonstrates that the festival is increasingly attracting great films and great film-makers from around the world. In so doing the festival sends a signal to our political leaders that this crisis that can no-longer be ignored. It sends a signal to the UN that human rights in occupied Western Sahara must finally be monitored. And it sends a signal to the Saharawi refugees that despite their isolation, they have not been forgotten."

Ken Loach, a long-time supporter of the film festival who cannot attend this year, said that “FiSahara is a film festival like none other and this year’s programme includes an impressive array of films including two Oscar-nominated documentaries. ­­The festival not only offers a unique cultural and educational experience for all who participate but also offers the Saharawi refugees, exiled from their native Western Sahara for almost four decades, a glimpse of what lies beyond their desiccated desert horizons. I encourage everyone to attend."

For more information about FiSahara or to book your place visit  http://www.festivalsahara.org/index.php/en or email  vuelos@festivalsahara.org


For URGENT help with funding (please publish) visit  http://www.ulule.com/fisahara/


FILM PROGRAMME:

ISMAEL by Marcelo Piñeyro, Spain (2013) 110´ / BLACK DIAMONDSby Miguel Alcantud, Spain, Portugal (2013) 100´ / JUSTIN AND THE KNIGHTS OF VALOUR by Manuel Sicilia, Spain (2013) 90´ / FOOSBALL by Juan José Campanella, Spain, Argentina (2013) 120´ / THE SCARECROW by Khalil Al Mazen, Palestine (2013) 40´ / ZIP & ZAP AND THE MARBLE GANG by Oskar Santos, Spain (2013) 97´ / DIRTY WARS by Richard Rowley USA (2013) 90’ / THE SQUARE by Jehane Noujaim, Egypt, USA (2013) 108´ / WHEN I SAW YOU by, Annemarie Jacir, Palestine, Jordan, Greece,Emirates (2012) 93´ / THE CUP READER by Suha Araj, Palestine (2013) 12´ / THE FLOWERS OF THE WALL by Moulud Yeslem, Xavi Marín, Spain, Western Sahara (2013) 70´ / ROOTS AND CLAMOR by Ebaba Hameida Hafed, Spain (2014) 20´/ SAHRAWIS SHORT FILMS by Abidin Kaid Saleh audiovisual school / JUST TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I´M ALIVE by Emanuela Zuccalà, Italy (2013) 64´ / LEGNA (SAHRAWI POETRY)by Juan Robles, Bahia Awah, Juan Carlos Gimeno, Spain, Western Sahara (2014) 90´ /CHABIBA (YOUNG) by Damián López López, Álvaro García Márquez, Western Sahara, Sahrawi Refugee Camp, Spain (2013) 54´ / REFUGEES THROUGH TIME by Gran Angular Cultural Association, Spain, Western Sahara (2014) 8’ / INVICTUS by Clint Eastwood, USA (2009) 134´/ BEYOND THE PICKET LINE/MÁS ALLÁ DE LA LÍNEA Lentsoe Serote South Africa (2012) 80´/ SLINGSHOT/TIRACHINAS Jackie Reem Salloum

Palestine – USA (2008) 87´ / CAST IN SAND: A TALE OF TWO WOMEN/FUNDIDAS EN LA ARENA: HISTORIA SOBRE DOS MUJERES Rebecca Roberts-Wolfe. USA (2013) 27’ / THE OTHER DAJLA/ LA OTRA DAJLA Nadir Bouhmouch, Sahrawi Refugee Camp (2013) 13’ / ESPERANDO EL VUELO/ WAITING FOR THE FLIGHT

Luis Rodríguez, Andrés Rodríguez, Sahrawi Refugee Camp, Venezuela (2013) 47’ / 475/475 Dir: Nadir Bouhmouch EEUU (2013) 60´ CHILDREN´S PROGRAMMING in coordination with « Pallasos en Rebeldía »


4.Background to the Western Sahara conflict

Western Sahara, "Africa's last colony", was divided between Morocco and Mauritania by the Spanish when they withdrew in 1976. Tens of thousands of Saharawis fled the invasion to refugee camps in the Algerian desert. In February 1976, the Saharawi independence movement, the Polisario Front, declared the creation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic. A 16-year war ensued between the Moroccans and the Polisario Front, the Mauritanians having withdrawn in 1979. In 1991 the fighting ended and under the terms of a UN ceasefire agreement, a referendum for self-determination was promised. However, this has been continually blocked by Morocco, leaving the Saharawi to live either under occupation in Western Sahara or in in four large refugee camps in the inhospitable Algerian desert. Home to 30,000 refugees, Dakhla, is the most remote of these camps.

This year’s film festival will coincide with a vote by the UN Security Council to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara (MINURSO). MINURSO remains the only contemporary UN peacekeeping mission without a human rights monitoring mandate and it is hoped that the UN will vote in April to extend their mandate to include human rights monitoring.