[Music]
We are in Europe, the first world, they say, okay,
and here they force us to create the fourth world.
Ten years later, the nightmare is repeated.
Fourteen people died in Ceuta, crossing
the border to the beach of Tarajal.
[Music]
Hello, I am Mahmoud Traore, I was born in Senegal, in the south of Senegal.
In 2002 I started my journey to Europe, in 2005 I managed to enter.
I am the co-author of the book "Partir para contar",
which tells the story of our journey to Spain,
and also co-screenwriter with Mariano of the
documentary "Samba, a Name Erased".
And an activist in general, promoting awareness through education,
and I also collaborate with people who work on human rights.
And I’ve put a lot of my experience and my struggle in the free
circulation of the human being within that planet that we are living on.
Hello, I am Mariano Agudo, I am the director of "Samba, a Name
Erased", I am a co-screenwriter with Mahmoud and I also work in Intermedia,
which is a film production company that, well,
we want to define ourselves as having a strong social commitment,
And, above all, one that addresses issues that are sometimes uncomfortable
or that the media, due to certain interests, do not dare to address.
That is our discursive space.
When we found out about Tarajal, automatically Mariano told me about it,
and that was an occasion for me, especially
on a personal level, and I felt very touched,
touched because it is my duty to transmit
that message, not only to society here,
but how it is lived on an emotional and
psychological level by our relatives who are behind.
When they gave the news of the number of deaths on the beach
of Tarajal, and also that they came out with all the impunity,
the images in the media of the police shooting
at people who tried to enter the beach,
smoke bombs towards the sea, which is a real outrage, due to the mixture
of toxins that occurs, rubber balls, people who are trying to swim.
We were absolutely moved, and that's how we called each other, and we said,
"We have to do something, we have to make a documentary that changes the look."
Because at that time, all the emphasis was on
the fragility of the borders and the mafias,
and what they were doing was killing
people who were trying to cross the sea.
It was such a disproportion that we
said, "It's time to make a documentary.
" And as we went on investigating, we saw that there
were a lot of parallels with the history of Mahmoud.
Because the boy was from the same region, because he spoke
the same language, well, there were many circumstances.
We committed ourselves and we did it. We spent two years, a first
year investigating, because it was very difficult with the family,
and another year, well, in the middle, trying to find financing, of
course, because it is not easy to be financed in this type of project.
And then, we were fully engaged, with all due respect,
because it was a very delicate subject.
It was important and also super difficult, because
it is to face reality and bring it into focus through the camera,
and to have this freedom of expression, and
that had a big impact on me in the documentary,
and I think that it was a great help to the family.
In fact, in the documentary, when we finished
interviewing his father, I remember his father saying,
"Thank you very much, today I'm going to
sleep quietly knowing that Samba has died.
" For this project of Samba, a Name Erased, we saw it was very important.
Well, besides the fact that Mahmoud had to be co-writer, because
he was going to be the unifying thread of the documentary,
and we were very interested in his points
of view and he had to be identified,
and he had to outline the path for us, right?
Where we should be addressing the contents, contents that
were very delicate, because we had to be very respectful.
We were talking about people who had died on the
way, we were also talking about clandestinity,
what could be said, what could not be said about this process.
And another important point was to give voice to
the collectives that already existed in Seville,
African collectives like Africa in its own voice
where Mahmoud participated,
what they thought about what was happening, and
we wanted to integrate it into the documentary,
that is, we wanted to give voice to them.
Exactly. Our idea was to unite and talk about ourselves,
Rather than having someone speak for us.
That doesn’t mean we’re telling people not to help us or pushing anyone away
but no, let me explain to you what is happening to me.
It is not that you explain what is happening to me. And it is
true that the documentary was a claim of our own voices, right?
We are going to tell ourselves what is happening to us,
and through that we expect your help, your collaboration.
The documentary had several functions.
One was that it was a serious, rigorous investigation,
explaining what was happening on the southern
border, which served to inform Samba’s family
about what had happened to their son,
but then it was also about giving a tool to the collectives.
from Seville and Africans in Andalusia, and to Mahmoud
himself, who performs a very important pedagogical activity
in the institutes, so that he could take the documentary and
then open debates and talk about the issue of immigration
with many collectives like the young people,
since Mahmoud works very well with young people.
Exactly. For me, the documentary is working and continues to work.
In fact, not only the institutes, but the collectives,
especially the collectives in the neighborhood, alternative
collectives, social level collectives, which really use it a lot.
I go many times not to defend it, but to share
it, because the idea is a little more of sharing,
that is, to share a reality that human beings live, obviously.
And we have to collaborate on the educational level,
especially the institutes, because they are
the children who are the future of the world,
and I think that they are being poisoned.
In fact, it impacts them a lot when they themselves see the documentary,
and you realize, maybe the first greeting and the next greeting,
when they see the documentary, it is already totally different.
You realize the human level that the children still have,
that is, that part of humanity, that sensitive part,
that part of not identifying with that discriminatory
and murderous policy, which I have lived a lot there.
After jumping the fence, you managed to get in—thank God 00:08:18-00:08:20 But we weren't so lucky. When we returned at night,they punished everyone they found.
For me, the documentary has helped me a lot,
especially to put myself in my place, which means that,
to understand how it is, how it is played in the
mentality and psychology of Spanish civil society,
that is, in this case Seville, where I live, it helps
me to investigate, especially to get to know myself,
where I come from, obviously, and see what is the place that they want
to put me in and what is the place I belong in society.
It is inevitable to compare Samba's luck with mine.
Somehow, I feel responsible towards his people.
Europe has taken everything, and people are fighting
each other because they can't take it anymore.
So, the cause of immigration is Europe.
[Music]
Samba is my son, I gave birth to him.
By killing my son, the Spanish government
...has caused me harm that can never be compensated.
[Music]
If they were white, it would not have been like that.
[Music] We’d already be in a war