Scene from the film Hotel Sahara
Scene from the film Hotel Sahara
Scene from the film Hotel Sahara
Scene from the film Hotel Sahara

Hotel Sahara

Direction
Year 
2008
Country
  • Germany
Duration
86min 
Subtitles 

A dead-straight, endless road leading to nowhere. And at the end of the road: Nouadhibou, a town in the West African country Mauritania, bordered by the ocean on one side and the Sahara Desert on the other. A bleak and inhospitable departure point for the tens of thousands of people that pour in from neighboring countries, all with only one dream in mind: Europe.

Hotel Sahara is a film journey to the last invisible border separating the West-African coast and Europe. The bleak city on the Atlantic Coast is a metaphor, a point of arrival and of departure, a gathering place of broken dreams - a place of waiting for that better life on the far side of the Atlantic. It is above all a no-man´s land, a place of endless waiting and endless hoping.

The film reveals how difficult it is to differentiate between "true" and "false" refugees. Is one "real" only when threatened life and limb? What if one simply desires to escape a deadening lack of perspective? With an observant and cautious eye, Hotel Sahara documents how closely the dream of a better life is linked to sudden stagnancy, and how much patience is required to wait for years to finally, perhaps, arrive somewhere.

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Details

  • Original title
    Hotel Sahara
  • Direction
  • Screenplay
    Bettina Haasen
  • DOP
    Jacko Van't Hof
  • Editing
    Kristine Langner
  • Music
    Karsten Hoefer & The Durgas
  • Sound
    Joerg Hoehne
  • Duration
    86 min (46-90 min.)
  • Year
    2008
  • Country
    • Germany
  • Colour
    • Colour
  • Production
  • Festivals
    • DOK Leipzig Documentary Film Festival Leipzig, Germany // German competition 2008
    • Vision du Réel Festival International de Cinéma Nyon, Switzerland // International competition „Regards Neufs“ 2009
    • Planete Doc Review Festival Warsaw, Poland 2009
    • FESPACO Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télevision, Festival of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 2009
    • achtung berlin new berlin film award, Germany 2009 // competition
    • IFFF International Womenʻs Film Festival Dortmund // Cologne, Germany 2009
    • Ecrans Noirs Film Festival Yaoundé, Cameroon 2009
    • Huesca International Film Festival Huesca, Spain 2009 // European Documentary Contest
    • IDFF Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival // Jihlava, Czech Republic 2009
    • CPH_DOX International Documentary Film Festival // Copenhagen, Denmark 2009

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