Indigenous activists from Western Sahara urge a boycott of Christopher Nolan’s summer film due to its shooting in the Sahara Desert, presently under Moroccan occupation.
Nolan filmed part of his grand production in Dakhla, a city located on a slender peninsula along the Atlantic coast, roughly 540 miles south of Laayoun, the largest city in the region. Morocco has occupied this area militarily since the 1970s, while the local Saharawi people also assert their claims over it. The ongoing tensions between these two parties date back many decades.
In response, Sahrawi journalist and filmmaker Mamin Hachimi has initiated a call for a boycott of the film, framing it as a defense of his people against what he refers to as Moroccan invaders and occupiers.
“This isn’t an attack on film or artistic freedom. It’s a plea for ethical responsibility,” Hachimi remarked, as reported by MidEastEye.
Hachimi, who has faced blacklisting for his films that highlight the struggles of the Saharawi people under Moroccan authority, expresses frustration that Nolan chose to film in an occupied territory, thereby endorsing Moroccan dominance in the area.
He shared, “Two of my colleagues, Abdallah Rafauni and Bashir Qadda, are political prisoners merely for documenting human rights abuses happening in occupied Western Sahara.”
“It’s quite upsetting that while Sahrawi journalists sit in prison for revealing human rights violations, international filmmakers can use our land as a scenic backdrop without confronting the reality of the occupation.”
Additionally, Saharawi artist Mohamed Suleiman Rabat criticized Nolan in an editorial, stating, “We Saharawis do not want our homeland to serve as a sanitized setting for a Western epic.” He further claimed that Nolan’s filming choices underscore the exploitative nature pervasive in the Western film industry.
Western Sahara has found itself in turmoil for many years.
Following Spain’s departure from the region, Morocco forcibly occupied Western Sahara in 1975. Not long after, the territory was split between Morocco and the Saharawi people, who established the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic to govern the remaining areas.
Morocco then constructed a 2,700-kilometer-long barricade, known as “The Berm,” to segregate its territory from the Saharawi side, heavily fortified with tens of thousands of landmines in the arid environment. To this day, Morocco enforces strict control over the region, even detaining Sahrawi dissenters.
Others have voiced their discontent. Sahrawi filmmaker Mohamed Salem Welad expressed his “deep disappointment” regarding Nolan’s decision.
“The choice to film in occupied Western Sahara wasn’t a politically neutral decision,” he elaborated, “but rather an endorsement of an occupying force in a place where the indigenous Sahrawi people have long been deprived of their right to self-determination.”
Another Saharawi filmmaker, Abidin Mohamed Hamdi, labeled Nolan a “conspirator” concerning the occupation, saying, “Shame on them. History will put everyone where they belong, and those involved will be remembered only as cultural parasites.”
Critiques of Nolan’s film aren’t limited to Sahrawis; Greeks have also spoken out, noting the absence of Greek actors in a film based on one of Greece’s most renowned stories.
A Greek news outlet condemned the film for “excluding the Greeks” from a narrative attributed to the ancient epic poet Homer, who penned it about 3,000 years ago.
“Hollywood has preached for years about the importance of representation, inclusion, cultural sensitivity, and diversity in storytelling,” the Greece City Times commented on Nolan’s work in May. “Studios, actors, and filmmakers frequently assert that authenticity is paramount. Culture cannot merely be extracted, and those who embody that culture shouldn’t be rendered invisible.”
“However, the future adaptations of Odyssey with Christopher Nolan seem to embody that very contradiction,” the article continued, “There are no significant Greek actors, no representation of Greek-Americans, and no symbolic acknowledgment of the cultural roots of the story.”
