Between Us and the World (Post Production)

---

---

UK / Morocco / Western Sahara / 17min / Colour & Black and White / 16mm & Digital

---

In the 1950s, two decades before the sovereignty dispute over Western Sahara reached its climax, a number of Europeans visited the region and filmed indigenous, nomadic Sahrawi children and youth, capturing moments of their everyday life in the desert. Seventy years later, several local youths from Laayoune (El Aaiún), Western Sahara / Morocco, aged between 17 and 20, share their thoughts on life, dreams, and utopia. Who are they — descendants of those filmed seventy years ago, or might they be those very people?

They revisit locations that may have appeared in the 1950s footage. Eroded remains and traces. Air thick with sand and phosphate dust. From ocean to desert to oasis, under trembling light, they attempt to search for an uncertain upstream, as landscape, language and gesture dissolve into the fragile wind.

---

Credits:
Directing, Editing, 3D Scanning: Wallace Minchong Li
Producers: Latina Li, Wallace Minchong Li
Image: Wallace Minchong Li, Yinyun Lin
FX Artist: Siyun Sun
Sound Recording: Yinyun Lin
Sound Design & Mix: Wallace Minchong Li, James Brimmell
Film Lab: Kodak Film London
Scanning: Digital Orchard

---