A Spanish producer reports to the FAO that Morocco has censored a documentary about the Sahrawi people
The complaint was made by the Spanish journalist Pablo Montes, producer of the award-winning short film Vientres de arena at the film festival organised by the FAO. However, at the gala, any mention of the documentary and the category in which it had been awarded was removed due to pressure from Morocco. The FAO refuses to comment.
Vientres de arena is the title of the short documentary produced by the Spanish journalist Pablo Montes, through his production company Cárabo Producciones in co-production with Shift Dif S.L, on the health conditions of the Sahrawi population living in the refugee camp of Tindouf, specifically, the lack of resources suffered by celiacs, an autoimmune disease that if not detected and treated in time can have serious consequences on health, the patient can end up developing tumors, Parkinson`s, sclerosis, skin-related diseases, intestinal infections, diabetes, arthritis or thyroid. "The proportion of people who suffer from this disease is almost eight times higher than the prevalence rates we have in Western countries. We were interested in looking at these people. If the Sahrawi population already lives in a situation of abandonment and neglect, celiacs have it even more complicated.
It must be taken into account that the vast majority of humanitarian aid that reaches them contains wheat, gluten and is contaminated." The documentary, in addition to celiac disease, addresses the role of women, the lack of schooling and the isolation suffered by the 170,000 people who live in these refugee camps.
The documentary was awarded at the film festival organized by the FAO, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Forum Film Festival. This was communicated to Montes by telephone, as he explained last September. "We have been lucky that it has been well received in many national and international competitions and contests. Among them was this one from the FAO. They wrote to us on 2 September last year and told us that we had won, that our documentary was the winner in the short film category within the theme related to health situations and food issues. On 6 October they contacted us again to tell us that we had to send a greeting video, because we could not be at the gala held in Rome, and also asking us for more logistical information and the current account to make the payment of the prize money." SER has had access to the email sent to the production company from the organization of the festival requesting "a better-quality copy of the short film to be shown at the closing gala."
The closing ceremony of the competition took place on 16 October and, to Montes` surprise, neither his thank you video nor any mention of the documentary, or even the category in which it was awarded, appeared. "The documentary had been advertised on the FAO website, but [the advertisement] disappeared. We had no explanation. We wrote immediately to find out what had happened, why the documentary had been omitted, and why it had only been that one. But nobody answered us and we have not had any further contact with the FAO. We wrote to other participants who had been selected in other categories and they began to tell us about a small diplomatic mess. One of the participants contacted us directly to tell us that the representative of Morocco was present when the trailer was shown and said that the documentary could not be shown because of its content."
Montes and his partner sent half a dozen emails to both the people in charge of the film festival and the FAO organization itself without receiving a response. Any mention of the documentary on the organisation`s website has disappeared and the video of the gala has also been deleted. They did receive a call from Amnesty International in Italy "to ask us if we were aware that the documentary project in which we had participated and which had been selected had been vetoed by Morocco for its content and that a silence had been imposed so as not to have any further contact with us. That has been the only and last thing we know."
Contacted an FAO spokesperson to discuss the matter, the response was that "the FAO does not and will not make any comment on the matter," reports SER correspondent in Rome, Joan Solés. After not receiving a response to any of the emails they have sent to the United Nations organization, the Montes brothers are studying what steps to take. They assure that they will continue trying to make new contacts with the FAO to get an official response to what has happened and will see what they do with the prize money, 1,000 dollars, which they never received.
Ventres de arena was produced in 2023 and has been recognized with more than 15 nominations and four awards at national and international film festivals. It was also nominated for the Goya Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2024.
Original article (in Spanish)
Photo: A scene from Ventras de Arena. Source: Cárabo Producciones.
