Oulaya’s Wedding

2017, 58 min, collaboration with Sublime Frequencies

Love and extremely loud music in the Sahara…

Group Doueh is the most beloved and innovative family band in Dakhla. For 33 years, band leader Doueh (Salmou Baamar) and his wife Halima have uplifted the people of the Sahara, morphing between ancient and modern sounds, inspired equally by Mauritanian griots and childhood idols Jimi Hendrix and James Brown.

They’ve toured the world with stars like Omar Souleyman and Tony Allen, but their biggest gig to date is the wedding of their eldest daughter, Oulaya. As the region’s most famous musicians and entertainers at heart, Doueh and Halima must deliver a spectacle and emotionally prepare to bid farewell to Oulaya, who will relocate to The Canary Islands with her new husband once the celebration comes to a close.

Oulaya’s Wedding is an intimate portrait of a family of artists and their court of extended friends and peripheral misfits, who lovingly navigate the emotional and logistical maelstrom of a week-long Sahraoui wedding. Presented are candid and sincere ontological accounts on art and identity by the residents, hosts, guests and musicians who make these weddings a foundation of Sahraoui culture.

In collaboration with filmmaker Hisham Mayet of Sublime Frequencies, the film crew are invited as Doueh's personal guests and given unprecedented access to record the preparation, pageantry and stunning sounds of Oulaya’s Wedding. The result is a film of warmth, humor and belonging through music in this remote region, and a glimpse of a rapidly changing Sahraoui culture confronted with globalized personal technology.

Select Screenings / Festivals:

F.A.M.E. Festival, Paris

Anthology Film Archives, NYC

Northwest Film Forum, Seattle

ATA San Francisco

New School NYC / World Music Institute

Alliance Francaise, Accra, Ghana

DokStation Festival, Bucharest, Romania

Caucasus All Frequency Festival, Kakheti, Georgia

Kirtimų Kultūros Centras, Vilnius, Lithuania

Mawaheb Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia