May 13, 1 min read
The Moroccan-Irish Friendship Association organized a screening of the Moroccan documentary film, subtitled in English, Life Alongside Death, on May 12, 2025, at the University College Dublin-UCD cinema. The screening was attended by approximately twenty Moroccan and Irish people, as well as those of other nationalities, including academics.
This film, by filmmaker Abdeloihd El-Mouhtani, which attracted the attention and sympathy of the audience, tells the story of six Moroccans from the Sahara, five men and one woman. Through representative settings and a dramatic construction, it depicts their experiences of individual and collective kidnappings and arrests by the Polisario militia during the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the torture and forced labor that followed, leading to the deaths of numerous residents of Morocco’s southern provinces and forcing many to organize their escape from the Tindouf camps into a desert difficult to cross due to thirst, hunger, and mines. The film, based on unique documents, reveals the project to establish a “Sahrawi state” with its capital in Tindouf, established by France during its colonization of the region and implemented by Algeria during the 1960s.
The screening was followed by a speech by the son of a Moroccan victim of the Polisario, Ali Souih, based in Ireland, describing the suffering endured by his father, whose body has not been received by his family to this day. This sad story was able to illustrate the documentary screened and retain the sympathy of the guests of this screening.