Hotel Sahara

2008 1h 25mMovie

Documentary

A dead-straight, endless road leading to nowhere ends at Nouadhibou, Mauritania, bordered by the ocean on one side and the Sahara on the other. A bleak departure point for tens of thousands pouring in from neighboring countries, all with one dream: Europe. Hotel Sahara is a film journey to the last invisible border separating West Africa and Europe. The bleak city on the Atlantic Coast is a metaphor, a point of arrival and departure, a gathering place of broken dreams—a no-man's land of endless waiting and hoping for a better life across the ocean. The film reveals how difficult it is to differentiate between "true" and "false" refugees. Is one "real" only when life and limb are threatened, or also when escaping a deadening lack of perspective? With an observant, cautious eye, Hotel Sahara documents how closely the dream of a better life is linked to sudden stagnancy, and the patience required to wait for years to finally, perhaps, arrive somewhere.