A documentary by Morgane Wirtz (2019)
For twenty years, André has been making a living organizing the transport of migrants between Agadez (Niger) and Sabha (Libya). To him and to a large part of the population in Agadez, crossing the Sahara was a key sector of the economy.
But in 2016, and with the financial support of the European Union, Niger adopted a law repressing all economic activity related to illegal migration. Since then, André fights to keep working illegally, with the excesses that it implies.
We follow him in the streets of Agadez and meet Fifty, Boubacar, Mudatheir and Myriam: they are four people who decided for different reasons to leave their country in search of a better life. Their journey is full of pitfalls, detours, moments of waiting. Boubacar, Fifty and Mudatheir have fled Libya after being incarcerated, tortured and eventually sold as slaves. Myriam comes from Nigeria. She did not want to run this risk and preferred to stop and remain for a while in Agadez before going back to Lagos. Prostitution allowed her to save enough money and to avoid returning home empty handed.
I came to Agadez willingly. What justifies that those who possess a Schengen passport can move more freely than others?
Best feature documentary at the Nova Frontier Film Festival, 2020, New York
Special Mentions in the International Documentary section at Vues d’Afrique, 2021, Montreal
