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Stolen: Slavery in Tindouf camps

Filmmakers Ayala and Fallshaw follow Fetim Sellami, a Saharawi refugee, to North Africa for a reunion with her mother. Mother and child were separated when Sellami was a toddler. But the UN-sponsored reunion reveals a secret which spirals the film into a dark world the filmmakers could never have imagined. The black Saharawis start talking about a forbidden subject…Their enslavement.
The filmmakers recount moments of terror when their lives were in danger as well as the extreme hardships in getting the footage across borders. Perhaps most disturbingly, it becomes difficult to distinguish who are the good guys, as the ‘good guys’ turn bad and the ‘bad guys’ appear to do good.
Protestors have demonstrated against the accuracy of the film. The Polisario, the movement running the camp flew Sellami to the Sydney Film Festival to deny being a slave and that slavery exists in the camps.
Stolen is a compelling, modern-day, real-life cloak-and-dagger thriller.
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Official Selection - Toronto International Film Festival 2009
Official Competition - International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2009

Awards
Winner - Best Feature Documentary 2010 - Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles
Winner - Grand Prix 2010 - Art of the Document Film Festival, Warsaw
Winner - Best Film 2010 - Festival Internacional de Cine de Cuenca, Ecuador
Winner - Best Editing 2010 - Doc NZ, Documentary Edge Film Festival
Winner - Special Jury Mention 2010 - Doc NZ, Documentary Edge Film Festival
Winner - Best Documentary 2010 - Anchorage International Film Festival
Winner - Best Documentary 2010 - African International Film Festival, Nigeria
Winner - Best International Feature 2010 - Rincon International Film Festival, Puerto Rico
Winner - Silver Olive 2010 - XV International TV Festival Bar, Montenegro
Winner - Best Film 2010 - River’s Edge International Film Festival
Winner - Special Mention 2010 - Ojai Film Festival, California
Winner - Audience Award 2010 - One World Human Rights FF, Bratislava
Winner - Audience Award 2010 - Amnesty International Film Festival, Vancouver

Directed by Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw
Written by Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw
Produced by Tom Zubrycki, Violeta Ayala, Dan Fallshaw and Deborah Dickson
Edited by Dan Fallshaw
DOP Dan Fallshaw

 

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