Mobilities of Cinematic Identity in the Western Sahara

Abstract

Sahrawi cinema has not been afforded much critical attention and can hardly be considered a national cinema by commonly used standards. The concept of such a cinema must be an inclusive one, appropriate to a stateless people, including not only those texts made in and about the territory by both Sahrawis and their supporters—and detractors—but also the use of film and video recording and distribution as part of the virtual battlefield, the media infrastructure available to the Sahrawis, and indeed, the consumption of film by the refugee population and by visitors at the FiSahara film festival. This chapter traces the relationships between the place and use of cinema within the Sahrawi project of identity and of state-building, using the trope of mobility to examine the intersection of political and cultural stakes in the Western Sahara.