The Sand

A contemporary fable about the condition of migrant refugees, especially women, fleeing from war.

February of 1939. The beaches of the Roussillon are concentration camps. The sea and the barbed wire fences encircle the immense prison that shelters the flood of people fleeing from the disaster of the war. They arrive devastated. Soldiers, women, men, and children, entire families, seeking new paths and finding only sand. Sand under their nails, sand in their hair, sand on their skin, and sand in their souls. They don't want to look back, but they do; they can't have hope, but they do.

The French authorities have separated the people and distributed them into sections. There you find such diverse people as a fifteen-year-old girl, a mother and her four children, and a pregnant militiawoman; a teacher, a Republican volunteer, or a conscripted soldier. While they wait, they look into each other's eyes, hear voices from the past, or escape into dreams. They gaze at the horizon a lot, which is the only part of the camp that remains open. But where do they place horizons if their ideals have collapsed?

Between the desolation of a space resembling limbo and the sea as a symbol of a promise of freedom, "The Sand" transports us to a past not much explored and also to a stubborn present, that of the epic of ordinary people fleeing the horror of war. Because from where can one build, explain, narrate, the condition of the migrant refugee?