A voyage into the hermetically closed vaults of our modern, civilized world. One of the first documentaries to be made on this subject reveals the bleak reality of thousands of slaves who, at the dawn of the 21st century, live in this African country. The government of Niger claims that there are no slaves, the United Nations Organization has no evidence, the major non-governmental organizations are unaware of the issue... The camera, however, after roaming the deserts of the Sahara, has recorded the faces, the words, the thoughts and the dreams of these "non-existent" slaves.
The phenomenon has its roots in the customs of the tribes of the Tuareg, the Fulani, the Manga and the Hausa who live there. It was nurtured by the practices of the Europeans who, in the 16th century, imported to their mines and plantations 11 million African slaves. Today, the practice thrives on the indifference of "civilized countries" while the poverty of Niger perpetuates the phenomenon.


Niger/Greece, 2005, 55mins, doc, English/Greek with English subtitles, Yorgos Avgeropoulos, dir.