Christopher Nolan, known for directing blockbusters like Memento, Interstellar and Oppenheimer, is facing public backlash for filming scenes of his new film, The Odyssey, in part of north Africa called Western Sahara.
The territory, formerly known as Spanish Sahara when it was administered from Madrid, was occupied by the Moroccan military in the 1970s and unlawfully annexed. It remains classified by the UN as a “non-self-governing territory” awaiting decolonisation.
The recent controversy concerns the filming of part of The Odyssey in Dahkla, a Western Saharan city on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It has brought attention to one of the most overlooked and protracted armed conflicts in the modern world, now 50 years old.
