Organisers of local film festival warn production of The Odyssey in Dakhla could normalise repression by Morocco
The organisers of the Western Sahara international film festival (FiSahara) have criticised Christopher Nolan for shooting part of his adaptation of the Odyssey in a Western Saharan city that has been under Moroccan occupation for 50 years, warning the move could serve to normalise decades of repression.
The British-American film-maker’s take on Homer’s epic, which stars Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o and Anne Hathaway, is due to be released on 17 July 2026.
According to the Hollywood studio Universal, which is backing the project, the film will be “a mythic action epic shot across the world” made “using brand new Imax film technology”.
But the decision to film in the Western Saharan coastal city of Dakhla has provoked fierce criticism from Sahrawi activists and those who were forced to live under occupation or to go into exile after Morocco annexed the country following the withdrawal of its former colonial power, Spain, in 1976.
