Lightdox has swept up world sales rights to Patrick Wally’s My Home of Wind and Sand, a decade-long portrait of Sahrawi activist Najla Mohamed Lamin, ahead of its world premiere at the 22nd Zurich Film Festival on September 29, where it screens in Documentary Competition. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg will attend the premiere and join Lamin, the film’s protagonist, for a post-screening discussion.
Born and raised in the Sahrawi refugee camps in south-west Algeria, Najla Mohamed Lamin is a women’s-rights, human-rights and climate activist and educator. In My Home of Wind and Sand’, she tells her own story over ten years as she raises her family, builds spaces for women and children, represents Sahrawi civil society internationally and campaigns peacefully for the future of Western Sahara.
Najla founded and runs the Almasar Library Centre, which works with women and children on reading, health, environmental awareness, water, gardening and climate resilience. She has represented Sahrawi youth and civil society at international forums, including the UN Fourth Committee and human-rights meetings in Geneva. In 2023, she was selected for the BBC’s 100 Women list, highlighting her work on women’s rights and climate justice.
Anna Berthollet, CEO of Lightdox, comments: “Patrick Wally’s eleven-year journey with Najla has resulted in a film of remarkable intimacy and patience. Rather than attempting to explain the politics of Western Sahara, he allows us to understand the conflict through the life of one woman – as a mother, an activist and a member of a community whose future remains uncertain. We are excited to bring the film into its upcoming festival journey and to introduce Najla’s story to audiences around the world. At a moment when Western Sahara is once again drawing international attention, we hope the film can do more than raise awareness: we hope it can create space for dialogue, deepen understanding and ensure that Najla’s voice is part of the conversation.”
Greta Thunberg will join Najla for a post-screening discussion about the situation in the Sahrawi refugee camps, Western Sahara. Thunberg and Najla first collaborated during Thunberg’s January 2025 visit to the Sahrawi camps, when Najla accompanied and interpreted for her. They stayed in the same host home and co-led a workshop on climate change, with their collaboration continuing in 2026.
The Lightdox press release describes how, when director Patrick Wally met Najla Mohamed Lamin in Vienna in 2015, he was still a student at the Film Academy Vienna and knew little about Western Sahara. He had been asked to film a single interview with a young woman from a refugee camp. Instead, he encountered “a charismatic and politically articulate woman whose story immediately stayed with him.” When the original project fell through, Wally decided that Najla’s story was the film he needed to make. He kept filming, returning to Najla over the following eleven years as she built a family, founded the Almasar Library Centre and became an increasingly prominent voice for her community.
“The result is a rare long-term portrait of a woman and a conflict that has remained largely absent from the international spotlight,” Lightdox says.
