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As blockbuster director Christopher Nolan prepares to release his highly anticipated new film *The Odyssey* to global audiences this Friday, a growing movement of Sahrawi activists, journalists and filmmakers is demanding a widespread audience boycott, sparked by Nolan’s decision to shoot key scenes in Dakhla, a city located in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara.

For nearly 50 years, Morocco has maintained military and political control over Western Sahara, a disputed territory where the indigenous Sahrawi population has long campaigned for full self-determination. Activists argue that Nolan’s production choice actively normalizes Morocco’s decades-long occupation, turning a contested, occupied homeland into a scenic backdrop for a Hollywood blockbuster without any acknowledgment of the territory’s fraught political reality.

Mamine Hachimi, a Sahrawi journalist and documentary filmmaker who is leading the boycott call, emphasized that the campaign is not an attack on artistic expression — it is a demand for ethical accountability from global cultural creators. Hachimi co-directed *Three Stolen Cameras*, a 2017 short documentary that chronicled the risks faced by independent Sahrawi media collective Equipe Media as they documented human rights abuses against local populations under Moroccan rule. The film was pulled from its scheduled Beirut premiere after the Moroccan government applied diplomatic pressure, and multiple Equipe Media members have faced ongoing arrest and harassment from Moroccan authorities.

Hachimi pointed to the ongoing incarceration of two of his colleagues as evidence of the stark double standard at play: Abdallah Lhafaouni is serving a life sentence, while Bachir Khadda is serving a 20-year sentence, both detained solely for documenting human rights violations in occupied Western Sahara. “It is deeply disturbing that while Sahrawi journalists are imprisoned for exposing abuses, an international film production can use our homeland as a cinematic backdrop without addressing the reality of the occupation,” he said.

While much of the mainstream public conversation around *The Odyssey* has centered on manufactured controversy stirred up by far-right online trolls targeting lead actor Lupita Nyong’o’s casting as Helen of Troy — a controversy Nolan has dismissed as irrelevant — Sahrawi activists insist this is a distraction from the far more substantive ethical scandal of the film’s production location. They note that the same Moroccan security forces responsible for routine violence and repression against Sahrawi pro-independence campaigners directly facilitated Nolan’s shoot in Dakhla. Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid has even publicly embraced the production, posing for selfies with Nolan and saying he hopes the film will raise Dakhla’s profile as a global filming and tourism destination.

Despite a high-profile open letter from global public figures including Oscar-winner Javier Bardem, legendary filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and climate activist Greta Thunberg calling for all Dakhla-shot scenes to be cut from the final film, Nolan has refused to publicly address the demands. Requests for comment from Universal Pictures and Nolan’s production company Syncopy Inc. have also gone unanswered.

Mohamedsalem Werad, a Sahrawi documentary filmmaker who gained international acclaim for his work on the life of iconic Sahrawi singer Mariem Hassan, called Nolan’s silence deeply disappointing. “Choosing to film in occupied Western Sahara was not a politically neutral production decision — it meant operating with the permission of the occupying power in a territory where the indigenous Sahrawi people have long been denied the opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination,” he explained. For Werad, a widespread audience boycott is the only clear way to send a message that creators cannot expect viewers to ignore choices that legitimize illegal occupation.

Another Sahrawi filmmaker, Abidin Mohamed Hamudi, went further, accusing the entire *The Odyssey* production team of complicity in the subjugation of the Sahrawi people. He framed Hollywood’s choice as the most extreme expression of a longstanding pattern: capitalist Western economies exploiting the land and resources of the Global South for profit. “Shame on them — history will put everyone in the place they deserve, and they will be in the dustbin of history, remembered as nothing but cultural parasites,” Hamudi said.

With a reported $250 million production budget and riding high on the critical and commercial success of Nolan’s Oscar-winning *Oppenheimer*, *The Odyssey* is projected to be one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, set to draw millions of viewers looking to escape into a mythic world of ancient gods, epic battles and fantasy. But behind the glitz and marketing hype, Sahrawi activists say, lies a stark, underreported reality that both Hollywood and the international community have chosen to ignore for decades.

The Western Sahara International Film Festival (FiSahara), which is hosted annually in Sahrawi refugee camps in southwestern Algeria — where hundreds of thousands of displaced Sahrawis have lived since being forced from their homeland by Moroccan forces — has emerged as a key organizer of the boycott. FiSahara Executive Director Maria Carron pointed out that Nolan’s crew relied on security support from the same Moroccan military and police forces that routinely target Sahrawi filmmakers and activists just kilometers from the Dakhla filming location. Local resisters face beatings, arbitrary arrest, and confiscation of equipment for simply documenting daily life under occupation, Carron noted. During filming last year, FiSahara and a coalition of Sahrawi creators and activists publicly protested, urging Nolan and Universal to suspend production, leave the territory, and refuse to include Dakhla footage without the explicit consent of the Sahrawi people. Their appeals were rejected.

“FiSahara calls for a general audience boycott of the film and for Nolan to be held accountable for personally benefiting from an illegal occupation by collaborating with Moroccan authorities to enter and film the territory and then by using images of Western Sahara without the consent of their rightful and legal owners, the Sahrawi people — an act that amounts to plunder,” Carron said.

In a sudden shift that risks unraveling years of tentative calm in Yemen, the Houthi movement announced Sunday it was formally ending its de-escalation agreement with Saudi Arabia, pledging swift retaliation over what it claims was an unprovoked Saudi airstrike on Sanaa International Airport.

Yahya Saree, the official spokesperson for Houthi-aligned Yemeni armed forces (officially known as Ansar Allah), confirmed that the alleged strike marks the end of all bilateral efforts to maintain a ceasefire between the two warring parties. “The targeting of Sanaa Airport ends the de-escalation phase,” Saree stated in a public address, emphasizing that “the strike will not pass without retribution.”

As of Sunday evening, Saudi authorities had not issued any immediate public response to the Houthi allegations or confirmation of the reported airstrike. Additional layers of complexity emerged alongside the escalation, with Reuters reporting that Yemen’s internationally recognized Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani has accused Houthi forces of detaining an International Committee of the Red Cross aircraft and its flight crew at Sanaa Airport. The Houthis have not yet commented on this accusation.

In a formal statement from its foreign ministry, the Houthi movement held Saudi Arabia fully accountable for restarting open hostilities in the country. “Saudi Arabia has announced the start of the war and bears full responsibility for it and for any consequences of this step,” the ministry said. The group added that the alleged airstrike was carried out “without any justification”, characterizing it as both a violation of Yemeni national sovereignty and a clear breach of the 2022 ceasefire agreement that paved the way for de-escalation talks.

The sudden escalation comes just days after a Houthi delegation returned from Iran, where members attended funeral ceremonies for Iran’s late former President Ebrahim Raisi (correction from original text context: Iran’s current Supreme Leader is Ali Khamenei, the late official was Raisi). Houthi-affiliated media circulated footage showing senior Houthi official Nasr al-Din Amer aboard an Iranian Mahan Air flight prior to departure from Tehran. The Houthi movement claims Saudi Arabia attempted to block the aircraft from landing in Yemeni territory, though separate video footage later confirmed the plane touched down safely at Hodeidah Airport along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

This breakdown in calm threatens to erase progress made under a United Nations-backed truce that has held for nearly two years, drastically cutting cross-border attacks and opening a pathway for negotiations to end Yemen’s nearly decade-long civil war. The Houthis form a core component of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, an alliance of regional armed and political groups that includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah and pro-Iran factions in Iraq, and has long positioned itself as a key military ally of Tehran in regional standoffs with the United States and Israel.

The latest breakdown in Yemen comes against a backdrop of rapidly escalating tension across the broader Middle East. Over the past week, the U.S. and Iran have exchanged targeted airstrikes following a series of attacks on commercial and military shipping in and near the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces have also launched recent drone and missile strikes targeting U.S.-affiliated military assets in the Persian Gulf and commercial shipping transiting the strategic strait.

This report was compiled from independent on-the-ground and regional sourcing, consistent with open Middle East reporting standards.

The United Kingdom is moving forward with a landmark and divisive plan to formally label Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a national security threat, using a sweeping new anti-state threat law that entered into force just last week.

UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will leverage the newly enacted National Security (State Threats) Bill to outlaw all public and organized support for the IRGC, a core institutional branch of Iran’s national armed forces that answers directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader. This action marks the UK’s official full proscription of the group, which British authorities accuse of carrying out death threats and systematic intimidation campaigns against targets on British soil.

In a formal written statement released to parliament, Mahmood detailed that nearly any form of support for the IRGC – from public expressions of favorable opinion to logistical or practical assistance – will now count as a criminal offense in the UK, carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment.

The new legislation will also be used to target two additional groups: Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (Hayi), a faction British authorities claim is aligned with Iran and has been linked to antisemitic attacks across the UK, and the volunteer wing of Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU.

While the UK has not formally joined any open US-Israeli military conflict against Iran, it has already permitted the United States to access British military bases to launch offensive strikes against Iranian targets, aligning London with Washington’s regional pressure campaign against Tehran.

The path to this proscription action began in April, when current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to fast-track the State Threats Bill through parliament. With the bill now law, official draft regulations for the proscription designation are ready to be laid before parliamentary representatives for formal process.

Critically, the new legislation grants Mahmood broad, unchecked authority to designate any state-affiliated organization as a national security threat if she judges it runs counter to the UK’s “safety and interests.” It criminalizes any individual found to “support, assist and obtain material benefits” – including information sharing – from groups listed as terrorist or threat-aligned organizations.

Independent experts who review UK terrorism legislation have issued stark warnings about the bill’s broadly worded provisions, noting that the vague language creates a major risk of criminalizing journalists and non-governmental organization workers who engage in routine contact with designated organizations, potentially exposing them to the same 14-year prison sentences applied to group supporters.

Home Office Minister Angela Eagle defended the proscription in an official statement, arguing the IRGC’s role far outpaces that of a conventional military force. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a central component of the Iranian state’s security apparatus, answerable directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader. Its role extends far beyond that of a conventional military force. It encompasses intelligence activity, the use of proxy actors, and the projection of influence designed to advance Iranian state objectives,” Eagle said.

Prime Minister Starmer framed the move as a necessary step to protect domestic security, stating: “We will never let Britain be a playground for states who want to spread fear, division and violence on our streets. We have already taken tough action against the Iranian regime and those linked to it, and against Russian operatives and networks targeting our country. These new powers will make it easier to prosecute and lock up anyone carrying out their dirty work here in Britain.”

As of the announcement, independent news outlet Middle East Eye has reached out to the Home Office to request additional comment and clarification on how the IRGC proscription will operate in practical terms, with no further details released publicly to date.