Nadia Kamel & Habib Ayeb – Egypt/Tunesia - 2012

In ‘Green Mirages’ we travel to the village of Demmer in the oasis of Gabes where Habib Ayeb, an academic geographer and ecologist was born. In the semi-arid region in the south of Tunisia, houses are dug underground with zero energy and agriculture is blooming with a few drops of annual rain. In a world that is organized according to the mentality of “maximum economic development”, the village of Demmer shows us a rare living trace of the genius management of recourses that is unfortunately being replaced by intensive development models that result in desertification and food crisis.

‘Green Mirages’ is the second documentary of Nadia Kamel of whom we screened ‘Salata Baladi’ last NVICinema season. The film questions the idea of unlimited development and reflects on the ideology of development which is, as Ayeb puts is “an unavoidable rollercoaster that reshapes societies at large forever.”

Duration: 39 minutes
Language: Arabic (English subtitles)