Boza

Credits

Name: Boza

Country: Tunesien

Year of publication: 2014

Format: DVD

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 55 Minuten

Direction: Fellah, Walid

Guest: Fellah, Walid; Trésor

Abstract

“Boza” is a word meaning “victory” in the West African language Bambara. “Boza” is also the word used, as the film shows, when migrants from sub-Saharan countries manage, after difficult attempts, often lasting years and frequently in vain, to finally cross the militarily secured European border. Many try to cross near the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which formally belong to the EU despite being geographically located on the Moroccan coast of the Mediterranean. Thousands of migrants live hidden in the wooded areas around the two Spanish port towns, in the hope of being able to somehow, sometime cross the barbed wire NATO fences that mark the fortification wall. Many are severely injured or killed in the attempts at crossing, as Cameroonians Trésor and Géraud Potago can attest, since they themselves arrived in Europe through this route.

The Tunisian filmmaker Walid Fellah, along with his camera, accompanied them and others on their clandestine journeys. He also took part in the “March for Freedom” from Strasbourg to Brussels with 400 activists in summer 2014 to demonstrate “against the racist EU migration and border policies”.