Reviews
Stolen Documentary Asks for Your Definition of Slavery
'Depending on your nose, this hue and cry may give off more than a whiff of old-fashioned leftist show trials, where the truth must conform to a political reality. The Polisario and friends characterize Ayala and Fallshaw as both "inexperienced" and as nearly demonic masterminds bent on smearing the Polisario for Morocco, even though the film makes strong claims about slavery in Morocco, too'
Michael van Baker, June 2010
Seattle International Film Festival
'The second half of the film plays like a spy thriller as they retrieve the tapes and resolve to expose the scandal. Undercut by the retraction of the main witnesses’ accusations and facing prosecution by several international authorities, they manage to bring the story to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, and to world attention. Suspenseful, scary, and displaying personal bravery by Ayala and Fallshaw, this exceptional film is a searing testimony to man’s continued inhumanity to man.'
Cleveland International Film Festival
'Polisario gets wind of the fact that the crew has refocused the topic of their film to slavery, which everyone strictly denies still exists. Now the filmmakers and their interview subjects are in danger. Burying their tapes in the desert sands, they escape the territory for the time being, newly determined to carry their shocking exposé of modern-day slavery — on both sides of the disputed territory — to the world.'
All Africa
'Stolen exposes a racial hierarchy within Saharawi society - a hierarchy that finds black Saharawis economically and politically oppressed. Individuals interviewed tell of black Saharawis forced to work for Arab Saharawi families. The film notes there are laws prohibiting slavery in the region, although the filmmakers show that local attitudes and customs often prevent enslaved individuals from trying to secure their freedom.'
Msia Kibona Clark, March 2010
Eye For Film
"Violeta and Dan gradually realised that the people there were practising slavery, with black Africans owned by white Arabs - all quite legal under Saharawi law. Before long they were fleeing through the desert, being contacted by spies, uncovering shocking conspiracies of silence and beginning to wonder if they would ever escape with their tapes - or even their lives."
Jennie Kermode, Feb 2010
Doc Point Helsinki Documentary Film Festival
"Fetim is enslaved to Deido, an Arab woman she calls “white grandmother”. Her fate is just a grain of sand in the Sahara desert, where no one dares to speak about slavery or fight for their rights."
Hannele Majaniemi, Jan 2010
International Documentary Festival Amsterdam
"What starts out for filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Daniell Fallshaw as a family reunion in a refugee camp in the Western Sahara turns into a dangerous political game...The more the family tells about everyday life, the more painfully clear it becomes that the camp is in the grip of a great taboo: slavery."
IDFA, 15 October 2009
Murder, mayhem and psychedelia at this year's Toronto International Film Festival
"Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw’s documentary Stolen tells a moving story of modern-day slavery in North Africa (and retrieving their footage from the African desert while various political factions looked for them took some serious skullduggery, which makes it into the film)."
Mark Slutsky, Montreal Mirror, 17 September 2009
Stolen (recommended)
"The film moves into political thriller territory when the filmmakers are made suddenly aware that the conversations they have taped put the lives of their subjects in peril, and they themselves have become prey to sinister political and cultural forces. Riveting stuff."
Greg Quill, The Toronto Star, 16 September, 2009.
Stolen ***
Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw (Australia)
"Stolen is a dramatic and complex exploration of modern slavery, not to mention a fascinating study of the perils of documentary filmmaking..."
The Globe and Mail, 11 September, 2009.
* Stolen
"Documenting a reunion, after 30 years, between a mother and daughter in a refugee camp in the Western Sahara, filmmakers Violeta Ayala and Daniel Fallshaw stumble on a profoundly unsettling and deeply concealed truth about systemic slavery in the region. The film moves into political thriller territory when the filmmakers are made aware that the conversations they have taped put the lives of their subjects in peril. Riveting stuff."
Toronto Star, September 06, 2009.
Mistranslations and Finger-Pointing
"Yes they got the story of ‘slavery’ out, but at what cost? By becoming puppets for the Moroccan government?"
Melbourne International Film Festival
"What began as an unassuming documentary has taken on the fate of a cause célèbre."
By MIFF, June 31, 2009
Eyes on the World: Australian Documentary at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival
"What is the role of the Polisario in bringing Fetim to Australia?... Until these questions are fully answered, there should be no surprise to see Fetim’s impassioned plea to distance herself from the story, calling the filmmakers liars and cheats."
METRO MAGAZINE, Issue 161, June 2009
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
Robbed of truth?
"But no-one is shown shackled in the film… A slave with a husband travelling Qantas and lodged with an eminent Labor politician?"
By Bob Ellis, Unleashed, ABC blog, June 16, 2009.
The Truth Is Out There
"Filmink sat down for a coffee with the brave filmmaking duo and discussed the much debated cardinal rule of filmmakers becoming part of their documentary."
Filmink - A Daily Blog, June 15, 2009
Link to review
Sydney Film Festival documentary prize preview
"It is compelling to watch… You really have to see it to believe it. It’s like a spy story."
ABC Movie Time , June 5, 2009.
Sydney Film Festival
"The filmmakers uncover an awful truth that precipitates their dramatic exit from the region and much skulduggery."
By Jenny Neighbour, May 14, 2009
Link to review
Stolen a film by Dan Fallshaw & Violeta Ayala
A Bic Films / United Notions Film Production
© 2009 United Notions Film