Christopher Nolan’s decision to shoot parts of his big-budget adaptation of The Odyssey in Western Sahara—specifically near Dakhla—has stirred up a storm.
This sun-baked stretch of land has been labelled by the UN as a “non-self-governing territory” since the ’60s, though Morocco’s got its flag planted and Western allies like the US and UK have recently nodded along to Morocco’s claims.
Why is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey courting controversy?
Thing is, Western Sahara isn’t just another cinematic backdrop. The area’s basically a pressure cooker, where the local Sahrawi people live under tight control and sometimes outright repression by Moroccan authorities. Despite the sweeping sand dunes and epic vistas that draw film crews (Amazon’s The Wheel of Time shot there, too), the human rights situation is, to put it mildly, complicated.
FiSahara, a film festival run out of Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria, isn’t taking this lightly. They’ve called out Nolan and Universal, demanding an immediate stop to filming in the region. According to them, Dakhla isn’t just a pretty face—it’s a militarized zone where Sahrawis can’t freely tell their own stories, let alone make movies about their lives under occupation.
Meanwhile, Morocco organises its own film events in Dakhla and bankrolls movies painting Western Sahara as part of its own territory, while Sahrawi filmmakers, if they dare to document their reality, risk persecution and worse.
FiSahara’s pushed this issue before, backed by big names like Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz. Their message: if Nolan and his crew really understood the stakes, they’d be appalled.
About Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
As for The Odyssey, it’s stacked with stars—Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, and a whole lot more.
The film’s set to hit IMAX screens in July 2026, with other filming locations spanning Morocco, Italy, Ireland, and Scotland. It’s the classic Homeric tale: Odysseus (Damon) battles monsters and gods to get home, while Penelope fights off persistent suitors and his son Telemachus (Holland) keeps his memory alive.
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