14 kilómetros

2007, 95 minutes

Three people looking for a better life become stranded in the desert with little hope of survival in this drama from Spain. Buba (Adoum Moussa) is an auto repairman living in Niger with his brother Mukela (Illiassou Mahamadou Alzouma); their village is mired in poverty, and given Buba’s talent as a football player, they decide to travel to Spain, where they believe Buba might have a shot at playing as a professional. Unable to travel legally into Europe, Buba and Mukela pay a smuggler $1,000 each for passage in the back of a panel truck into Algeria, where the can easily pass into Spain. En route, Buba and Mukela meet Violeta (Aminata Kanta), a teenage girl from Mali who is escaping an arranged marriage with a man she hates. During the trip into Algeria, the three begin to have doubts about the smugglers, and their fears become reality when they’re dumped in the desert fourteen kilometers from their destination. Buba, Mukela and Violeta are told that they’re only a four hour walk away from their destination, but without navigation tools they finds themselves lost in the sandy plains with no idea of how to make their way to civilization.

Credits

Themes
Migration and refugees
Suitable for
havo/vwo - bovenbouw
vmbo b/k - leerjaar 3 & 4
vmbo t - leerjaar 3 & 4
Director
Gerardo Olivares
Country of production
Spain
Type
Fiction
Duration
95 minutes
Year
2007
Age rating
12 angst geweld