CHAHID EL HAFED [Sahara Press Service] - The Western Sahara International Film Festival (FiSahara) called for a box office boycott of The Odyssey, the latest blockbuster by the British director Christopher Nolan, after part of the movie was filmed in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara with permits from the occupying power, ignoring the legitimate owners, the Sahrawi people.
In a press release issued by Contramutis, FiSahara reports that Dakhla, a Sahrawi city where the White Dune, utilized by Nolan, is located, “has been for fifty years the site of torture, arbitrary detention, theft of land, forced expulsion, ethnic cleansing, and all kinds of violations of the human rights of the Sahrawi population by the repressive Moroccan forces.” Morocco has redeveloped [reconvierte] the Territory, through activities like the one undertaken by Nolan, “into a grand showcase in order to normalize its illegal occupation,” FiSahara added.
The organization indicates that Nolan made no comment on the filming for a year and has not clarified whether scenes “stolen from the Sahrawi people” appear in the film. However, the trailer released on July 1st appears to show the beach in Dakhla next to the Great White Dune, where the filmmaker filmed, in its opening shot.
“When Christopher Nolan steps onto the red carpet at the premier of The Odyssey on July 6th in London he will also be stepping on International Law, and specifically the right of an entire people to access its territory and resources and to produce its own films in its homeland without risking going to prison,” María Carríon, the executive director of FiSahara, affirmed.
The actor Javier Bardém declared: “I would encourage Nolan to learn about the history of the Moroccan regime’s repression of the Sahrawi people and the systematic violation of its rights, documented by Amnesty International and other international organizations.”
For his part, the Sahrawi filmmaker Brahim Chagaf, originally from Dakhla, affirmed: “Christopher Nolan has had a year to learn the history of the place where he decided to film, from which my family had to flee in 1975 under bombardment with white phosphorus. I still cannot freely enter this land to tell my own stories. This is the contradiction: while a privileged few like Nolan can turn it into cinema, the rest of us are still waiting for the day when we can simply return.”
FiSahara offered a reminder that in July of 2025, when Nolan was filming in occupied Dakhla and was photographed with the Moroccan Minsiter of CUlture, the festival initiated an international campaign calling for Nolan, Universal Pictures, and Syncopy not to include these images, or to obtain the consent of the Sahrawi people. Despite the support of Javier Bardem, Pedro Almodóvar, Greta Thunberg, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, or Paul Laverty, and coverage in Variety, The Guardian, or Le Figaro, both Nolan and the production and distribution companies have said nothing for a year.
“To be complicit in the violation of International Law cannot be free. The illegal occupation of Western Sahara, the natural and cultural pillaging of it, and even the war provoked by Morocco in 2020 are systematically silenced by the Moroccan lobby,” FiSahara emphasizes, urging that media reporting on The Odyssey not omit this reality.
Just as in The Odyssey Odysseus tries to return to Ithaca, the latest edition of FiSahara called in April-May for the right of return for exiled Sahrawi people and the decolonization of the territory, while Morocco blocks their return but welcomes productions like Nolan’s.
