La duna de Chinguetti (The Chinguetti Dune) is conceived as a collaborative project aimed at highlighting Mauritania’s immense cultural heritage, especially its libraries and the centuries-old manuscripts they house, through the story of two Sahrawi friends in exile on a journey in search of a shared identity.
The screening of the film, which will be attended by the producers, directors, protagonists, and most of the technical team, will take place on March 20 at 7:00 p.m. at ArtHouse Zinema.
The presentation will last approximately 90 minutes and will discuss how the story came about, the objectives of the project, and will include the screening of previously unseen videos. During the presentation, the lead actress will sing the film’s theme song, and to conclude, there will be a talk and discussion with the audience.
The project is a self-financed, collaborative, non-profit documentary film whose main objective is to support the families of librarians so that they can continue their work of safeguarding Mauritanian socio-cultural heritage, which they have been doing for centuries and which today finds itself in a very vulnerable situation due in part to development pressures, with heavy migration to cities, pressing desertification in the region, and a lack of institutional support. Filming took place in early 2025, and the team is currently in the editing and post-production phase, with the goal of turning it into a feature-length documentary to be screened at national and international festivals.
Synopsis
What would happen if one day your friend called you on the phone to tell you that he had discovered that you are not only Sahrawi but also have Mauritanian roots and that, in addition, you are descended from a famous 19th-century poet-warrior, a true legend of the desert?
It sounds like an unlikely tale, but this is the true story of two friends, Suilma and Bahía, a singer-songwriter and a poet-anthropologist, who, after discovering an ancestral family tie, decide to travel across the Mauritanian desert in search of answers. Along the way, they make discoveries that come from centuries-old manuscripts, but also from the living memory of the local people.
A documentary that unfolds in real time, revealing the emotions of two characters who discover themselves in the face of secrets hidden in the past. In it, the protagonists discover that identity is not a fixed destination, but a journey that can be transformed forever upon contact with the secrets of the past. Landscape, adventure, culture, poetry, music, unknown characters, and the last African salt caravans intertwine with the deepest memories of these two Sahrawi souls in exile, whose lives are both moving and stirring. With an intimate and poetic visual style, guided by a close and conversational camera, it avoids traditional interviews to focus on a more sensory and contemplative narrative. Each frame is testimony to a living process, where identity and memory dialogue with the landscape, evoking an inner transformation.
DATA
Title: La duna de Chinguetti (The Dune of Chinguetti)
Participants: producers, directors, protagonists, and most of the technical team.
Location: BilbaoArte (Urazurrutia, 32). ArtHouse Zinema.
Dates: March 20.
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Seating: 60
Free admission.
Lidia Peralta García
Screenwriter and co-director. She is a professor at the University of Granada and a documentary filmmaker specializing in migration, memory, and identity. She has directed and written nine documentaries, receiving numerous international awards. Among her works, “La caravana del manuscrito andalusí” (2009) stands out, which deals with the exile of Arabic manuscripts produced in Spain during the Islamic period, following the trail of these books from Toledo, near Madrid, to Timbuktu, in Mali.
Germán Nieto Maeso
Co-director and director of photography. He has participated in more than 50 documentaries filmed in over 30 countries, portraying social and cultural realities with a unique visual perspective. He also runs the production company Maesso Films, which plays a key role in this project.
