Stolen

STOLEN is a real-life adventure story that unfolds as Australian filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw travel to the Western Saharan desert. They intend to film a family reunion scheduled to take place in refugee camps, 30 years after the dispute between Morocco and the Algerian-based Polisario Front. (Western Sahara was under Spanish control for many years until Morocco invaded in 1976.) Taking issue with Morocco, Polisario has established itself as the sole representative of the nomadic Saharan, or Saharawi, people. Some 100,000 refugees still live in Polisario's camps in Algeria. As Ayala and Fallshaw interview refugees, they realize with horror that many of the black Saharawis in the United Nations-monitored refugee camps are still enslaved by white Arabs. Polisario gets wind of the fact that the crew has refocused the topic of their film to slavery, which everyone strictly denies still exists. Now the filmmakers and their interview subjects are in danger. Burying their tapes in the desert sands, they escape the territory for the time being, newly determined to carry their shocking expos̩ of modern-day slavery Рon both sides of the disputed territory Рto the world. (In Hassanyia Arabic and Spanish with subtitles) РB.B.