Hollywood’s blockbuster adaptation of the ancient Greek epic The Odyssey premieres around the world today amid growing calls for a boycott. Human rights campaigners are criticizing director Christopher Nolan over his decision to film part of the film in Western Sahara, a vast territory in northwestern Africa that Morocco has occupied for the past half-century.
“This occupying force is practicing cultural genocide against the Sahrawi people, ethnic cleansing,” says María Carrión, the executive director of the Western Sahara International Film Festival. “By staying silent for one year and then using this footage, Nolan has basically become an accomplice to Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.”
Abidin Mohamed Hamudi, a Sahrawi filmmaker speaking to Democracy Now! from Algeria, says he cannot return to his home in Western Sahara, but Nolan “can just go there and film and be complicit in the occupation of my homeland.” He calls it “a metaphor of how the Western world uses human rights, democracy narratives whenever they want, and then ignore it in other parts of the world.”
As the administration pulls back on humanitarian aid, Energy Secretary Chris Wright is boosting a more transactional approach to fighting energy poverty.
Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. The late Senator Lindsey Graham played the role of chief congressional warmonger very well. But many of his colleagues, who spoke in quieter voices, were completely aligned with his support of U.S. imperialism. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s republican senior senator, passed away suddenly on the evening of July 11, 2026. Earlier […]
Neil Thompson Informed Comment US President Donald Trump startled shipping companies and foreign governments earlier this week by announcing that the US would be charging a 20% toll for passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump publicly embraced the idea of a tolled future for the Strait, a proposal he had sought China’s help in preventing during at a […]