Filming ‘The Odyssey’ in Western Sahara raises ethical questions

By filming a story of exile and homecoming in Western Sahara, Christopher Nolan‘s Odyssey it transformed an unresolved homeland into a landscape and revealed the need for ethical standards regulating film locations.

Nolan has built much of his career around men confronting forces greater than themselves: time, war, memory, guilt, gravity, and the consequences of ambition. Inside OdysseyIt returns to one of the fundamental stories of Western literature: OdysseusThe struggle to return to Ithaca after the destruction of Troy.

However, one of the production’s most important choices occurred outside the narrative. Part of the film was shot near Dakhla in Western Sahara, which is controlled by Morocco but is still listed by the United Nations as a Non-Self-Governing Territory, whose final status has not yet been resolved.

This choice creates a contradiction that cinematic spectacle cannot hide. Nolan has filmed a story about exile, separation and the struggle to return home to a people who have spent half a century divided between refugee camps, exile and life under Moroccan control.

Inside HomerThe saga of Ithaca is more than a destination. It represents belonging, family, memory and political legitimacy. Odysseus’ return is not just the end of a journey; it is an attempt to reclaim a house transformed in his absence.

According to Sahrawis, these themes are not ancient mythology. They are part of something living reality.

We Sahrawis live a reality that mirrors Nolan’s story: exile, separation, longing for home, the search for a way back, and the struggle to preserve land and identity. This is the basic irony: A filmmaker who searches the ancient past for a universal return story overlooks the people who are experiencing a similar tragedy today in the lands he chooses for his cameras.

Sahrawis welcome art, creativity and cinema. We welcome anything that enriches culture and brings places to the world’s imagination. But we also want our story to be understood and to be seen as a people with memory, voice and rights; not as a silent backdrop or an exotic natural setting where cameras capture their images.

The issue is not whether deserts, dunes or coastlines will appear in movies. Nor does artistic freedom require filmmakers to support every political view on every location.

The question is whether a major international production can enter an unresolved territory with the permission and logistical support of the power controlling it, extract the visual value of the landscape, and then act as if the decision carries no political significance.

Like that.

Western Sahara has been on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories since 1963. In his advisory opinion in 1975, International Court of Justice It found no nexus of territorial sovereignty that could override the right of self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the people of the region.

In October 2024, Court of Justice of the European Union Reaffirmed Western Sahara separate and different status and ruled that EU-Morocco trade and fisheries agreements affecting the region require the consent of the Saharan people.

A film production is not legally the same as a trade agreement. Therefore, it would not be correct to declare that the shooting of Nolan’s film was necessarily illegal without examining the permits, contracts and applicable laws.

But the legal record removes any serious basis for considering Dakhla as an ordinary, uncontroversial Moroccan location. Permission may provide physical access to land, but it does not automatically provide political legitimacy or meaningful consent. Administrative approval by the authority controlling a region cannot replace those whose right to determine the future of that region is internationally recognized.

Morocco considers Western Sahara as part of its “southern provinces” and is investing heavily to present Dakhla as a destination for tourism, business, sports and investment. Shooting major film productions fits this strategy. A global blockbuster can reinforce a regional narrative without containing a single overt political line.

Cinema doesn’t just show places. It frames them, names them, and assigns them a political reality.

When an international audience sees Western Sahara as disconnected from its unresolved status, the absence of context produces its own message: Nothing is challenged here; No human being is lost; no need for consent; This is another location in the state that has opened the way for cameras.

This is not impartiality. This is normalization by omission.

The contradiction becomes even sharper due to the moral structure. Odyssey. Odysseus is granted a face, a voice, a history, and the right to return. The audience is asked to understand his longing for Ithaca and the injustice of leaving his home.

However, Sahrawi’s relationship with the land used by production remains outside the framework. As Western Sahara becomes a universal landscape, the people who give this landscape its contemporary meaning with their historical and legal claims become invisible.

There is also a disparity in who is allowed to create images. While international productions may come with budgets, permits, and institutional support, Saharan journalists, artists, and filmmakers face restrictions when documenting their own societies and political realities. While outsiders take in images from the region, locals struggle to control how their history and present are represented.

The debate should prompt the international film industry to develop clearer standards for working in occupied, colonized or internationally disputed territories.

Studios already conduct financial, security and reputation considerations before choosing a location. Territorial status and human rights due diligence should become equally routine. Productions should define a location’s international legal status, explain which authority has granted permission, examine whether government subsidies are part of the regional propaganda strategy, and consult trusted representatives of those affected.

They also need to accurately describe controversial locations in credits and trailers. A disputed territory should not be lost in the national brand of the state that controls access to it.

None of this requires Nolan or Universal Pictures to resolve the Western Sahara conflict. It requires something more limited: acknowledging that filmmakers with enormous cultural clout cannot enter unresolved territory, acknowledging the support of one side, and then treating the resulting images as politically innocent.

The power of cinema lies not only in what it shows, but also in teaching the viewer not to see.

Before celebrating Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, the audience should be told that his hometown is his movie set.

Mohamed Elbaikam is an independent activist from Western Sahara.

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