After more than thirty years stranded in one of the most inhospitable areas of desert on earth, refugees from Western Sahara are using the arts to highlight their plight. Peter Culshaw met Manu Chao and Javier Bardem at the Sahara Film Festival

How do you get attention for your cause if you are a marginalised people, ignored for thirty years in the desert? When I spoke to several Saharawi refugees in a camp this month in Southern Algeria they felt they had two options. One: violence - freedom fighting, from their point of view; terrorism, according to their enemies - or two: hosting an arts festival and getting some celebrities along to garner some media attention.

‘If me being here helps in any way, I am glad to help’ - Javier Bardem with Manu Chao and Javier Carcuera, director of the Sahara Film Festival

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Forget the Tribeca Film Festival! Javier Bardem is all about the Sahara International Film Festival.

The Oscar winner jetted off to southwestern Algeria near the border with the Western Sahara to partake in the cinema gala’s fifth installment Thursday and took time out of his schedule to visit the Dakhla refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria. There, the 39-year-old was welcomed with open arms by numerous exiled Sahrawi families.

The Saharawis fled their native Western Sahara more than 30 years ago to escape Moroccan and Mauritanian oppression.

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Spanish stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are to marry, reports claim.

Bardem, who won this year’s Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “No Country For Old Men”, is thought to have proposed last month during a holiday in France.

Sources told the National Enquirer that he popped the question after mum Pilar urged him to take the relationship to the next level.

A friend said: “Pilar took her son aside and told him, ‘What’s the matter with you? She’s perfect! You love her, she loves you. Get married.’”

The couple began dating last summer after hooking up on the set of Woody Allen’s “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” in Spain.

The wedding is rumoured to be taking place later this year.

Source: Digital Spy

Huge congrats to Javier for the great honor! Photos will be added shortly.

The Actors Union Prizes were awarded at a gala in Madrid last night, with the gongs given to those who have excelled in television, theatre or film over the past year. This year the main Premio Homenaje went to actor Javier Bardem for winning an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in “No Country for Old Men”.

In his acceptance speech, Javier Bardem commented that when he was told about the award that he thought it was a bit absurd that he was being given an award for having won an award, but that it was a very special prize to belong to a different race of people that had a lot to do with the love of life. Javier Bardem was visibly affected by the night and enjoyed the choice of his brother Carlos as Best newcomer.

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