WILAYA

Spain, 2012, 88 minutes, Colour.
Nadhira Mohammad.
Directed by Pedro Perez Rosado.

In more recent times, film-makers are going to more remote communities to dramatise their problems, and make an appeal to authorities like the UN and to the international community to become aware of forgotten and oppressed people.

This is one of those films.

The setting is the Sahara and the film focuses on a group of Moroccan refugees who moved into the area during troubles in the mid-1970s. Many of them were able to send their children to Spain to be educated, but this meant that many of them had Spanish families as well as their families back in Africa.

Wilaya tells the story of one of these adults who left for Spain at age ten. When her birth mother dies, she returns without knowing whether she wants to stay or go back to Spain. She is played by
Nadhira Mohammad who experienced much of what she has been asked to enact here.

The film shows her family and how they survive in difficult and remote circumstances. She is resourceful and buys a car which leads to a business of transporting goods as well as passengers.

She works in partnership with her crippled sister - and they make quite a success of their enterprise.

The film also shows in some detail other characters who try to survive. It is pointed out that there is by now a third generation which has been born in this anomalous situation.

This is one of those worthy films that stir emotions and open up wider horizons in a troubled world.

1. Audience knowledge of the Saharan people? News, information? 1975 in Morocco, the range of refugees, the settlements? The third generation of refugees born in the camps?

1. The use of a narrative to make points about the people and their plight?

2. The location photography, the details of the settlements, the overviews, houses and shops, the desert, driving through the desert? The musical score? Local tones?

3. Fatemetu and her story? Sent to Spain at ten, her education there, her Spanish parents? Her birth mother dying, her final wishes? Fatemetu returning? Plans or not? Meeting Jatri, Hayat, her relatives? Her life in Africa, her dress, western? Her buying the car? Setting up the business with Hayat, its success, driving people, driving, his planning to find his birth father? His wanting to marry her? Her agreement on part of the plan, the giving the fridge – and the visit to Spain?

4. Hayat, crippled, a cheerful woman, with Jatri? Her learning to drive, enjoying the work?

5. Jatri, his wife, pregnant, the birth of the child? Wanting the fridge? The point about having a fridge – but having something in it?

6. The young man and his absent father, his love for Fatemetu, giving his fridge?

7. The other members of the family, the older generation, the brother of the absent father? His wife, her comments?

8. The family that Fatemetu drove, the marriage and the forced marriage?

9. The final plan, able to be operated? The framework of the public address system and the excursions for the children, notices for passports and visas for Spain?

10. A worthy film – informing people through a story about a forgotten group and their needs and rights?