Sahara Chronicle
2007 · 1h 11m
Watch this tonight if you want challenging, thought-provoking cinema that demands active engagement—this is ambitious documentary work tackling urgent geopolitical realities through fragmented narratives and visual storytelling. Skip it if you're after comfort viewing or easy answers; this is deliberately oblique, sometimes frustrating, and absolutely not background-watch material.
Plot
Sahara Chronicle encompasses an undefined number of short videos documenting the present sub-Saharan exodus towards Europe. Taking a close look at the modalities and logistics of the migration system in the Sahara, the project examines the politics of mobility, visibility and containment which lie at the heart of current global geopolitics. The material is gathered during three field trips to major gates and nodes of the trans-Saharan network in Morocco, Mauritania and Niger where migratory intensity is bundled. No voice-over narrative strings these stories together. Meaning has to be extracted from the interstices between the documents, from the stretch of the journey that is most invisible to the eye.