UK / China / Morocco / Western Sahara / 16min / 2025 / Black and White / Digital
Synopsis:
Since 1975, this desert land has borne the remnants of Spanish rule, the presence of Morocco, and the resistance of the Sahrawi people. Migration and exile continue to leave layered imprints upon its shifting sands. On the border between Western Sahara and Morocco, where echoes of conflict fade into a fragile truce, silence crosses the sands and night becomes day. Stillness and movement. People, birds, clouds, turn into ruins on the journey of refuge. Fifty years, and then?
Director’s statement:
This short film is composed of fourteen shots, like fourteen parts of the wall, lingering on fragments of life along the borderland between Western Sahara and Morocco. What appears may be a person, a brick, a bird, or a drifting cloud. There are no words spoken—only the presence of the Sahrawi people, in both their present and their past. At times it is abstract, at times concrete. Some remain inside the wall, while some stay outside. Under a steady gaze, everything appears alike, quietly shifting across this land. In the end, everyday life slowly collapses into ruins, concealed beneath sand and wind.
Director: Wallace Minchong Li
Producer: Latina Li, Wallace Minchong Li
Image: Wallace Minchong Li, Yinyun Lin
Sound: James Brimmell
Editing: Wallace Minchong Li
wallacelmc 