Solaris

The vibration of machines echoes across the desert. Ever since Jordanian nomads settled in the spectacular landscape of Wadi Rum, they grew dependent on complex water infrastructure. The source is right below their feet, yet they struggle to meet basic needs. In the meantime, deep water extraction feeds private large-scale farms, animates visionary development and secures growing urban population. Bedouins, farmers and city dwellers: they all expect to have a fair share, but digging for “blue gold” unleashes environmental time-bomb. The story of power, exploitation and changing ecological circumstances in one of the most water-poor countries in the world.

The film situates the viewer within a makeshift space of an animal market in Algeria. Drifting between feeding and waiting, one attunes to the bodies of goats and camels, the oldest companions of Arab men. As we move deeper into the desert, the site turns into a sacrifice zone and reveals its dark geopolitical secrets. The sensory ethnography film will invite you to question the banality of displacement, confinement and exploitation in an out-of-sight territory.