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Review – ‘Stolen’: Seeing More Possibilities
By Cynthia Fuchs 5 April 2011 PopMatters Film and TV Editor You can’t change these ideas until you get out and see other possibilities. —Tizlam “Is it true my white grandmother beat you as a child?” asks 15-year-old Leil, Her mother, ...
The Characters
The story begins with Fetim, a black Saharawi who was taken from her mother as a toddler by Deido, a ‘white-Arab’ woman. Thirty years later Fetim is reunited with her mother through a UN family reunion program.The reunion sparks a revolution amongst the black Saharawis who speak out against being ...
Interview with the directors
Stolen: Shining a Light on Modern Day Slavery by Rahul Chadha, April 07, 2011 The morality issue at play in the film Stolen is Manichean in its clarity—slavery is unarguably one of the ...
Reviews
Variety Review "Guaranteed to spark intense debate about the relationship between documakers and their subjects wherever it's shown… Pacy, exciting and hugely engrossing." By Richard Kuipers, June 21, 2009 Link to review Seattle International Film Festival 'The second half of ...
Watch the trailer
Australian filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw go to the Polisario governed refugee camps in the Algerian desert to make a film about a family reunion. Everything changes when the black Saharawis start to talk about a different subject...Their freedom.
Awards
Stolen has won 12 awards around the world, from Best Documentary at the Pan African Film Festival in LA to the Grand Prix at the Art of the Document in Poland. Best Feature Documentary 2010 - Pan African Film Festival, ...
Screenings
New York African Film Festival 8th and 12th April 2011 Stolen NY premiere at the NY African Film Festival @ the Lincoln Centre Stolen @ NYAFF Stranger Than Fiction @ IFC, New York 5th April 2011 Sneak preview of Stolen in NY ...
Response to SVT-UR pulling STOLEN off air.
As a filmmaker it was disturbing to find out today via the Swedish press, that the Swedish public broadcaster SVT-UR, who purchased the rights for STOLEN more than a year ago, then cut the film into a TV hour, made their own translations and advertised to broadcast it on March ...
Review on About.com
Stolen - Movie Review of Stolen - 2009 Following A Story as It Unfolds About.com 4 Star Rating By Jennifer Merin, About.com Guide Stolen is a perfect example of a documentary that started out to tell one story and wound up presenting quite another. While documenting the efforts of ...
Press Room
Press Kit Selected Reviews, Festivals, Prizes, Synopsis, etc Download Stills from the film Download Poster Pictures of the directors Download
The Filmmakers
Writer/Director/Producer/2nd Camera: Violeta Ayala is an award-winning filmmaker from Bolivia. She is an accomplished writer and theatre actress. In 2006 Violeta and Dan Fallshaw established UNITEDNOTIONS FILM, to create thought provoking media. They started their work in North ...
Video Stories
Origins of STOLEN In September 2006, with the co-operation of the Polisario, we went to the camps to make a film about a family reunion. After 10 days of being introduced by Polisario officials to women who were to take part in a ...
Interview with UNHCR, Ursula Aboubacar
Interview with UN in 2007 clearly stating they are aware slavery exists in the Polisario refugee camps and the surrounding territory, including Western Sahara. This video is made available because of accusations made by the interviewee that we manipulated her interview.
Matala’s message to the world
Matala is a character in Stolen. He lives in the Polisario refugee camps in Algeria. He traveled 1,800 km overland from the refugee camps to Mauritania to tell us how slavery is affecting the lives of his family and his people. This ...
FAQs
How did slavery surface while you were making the film? It was on our third trip to the camps and we’d been living with Fetim and her family for more than a week. Once we'd settled in, Fetim’s daughter started to talk about slavery in the camps. It was then that things ...
The Controversy
"In the case of Stolen, the film that proved to be the most controversial at this year's Sydney Film Festival, the creators have had to endure detention, international criticism and public scrutiny after the featured family in the film withdrew their support for the film's claims."