Release of film The Runner

​The Runner
Saeed Taji Forouky
Year: 2013
Country: France

​The story of a champion long-distance runner whose journey transformed him from an athlete into the symbol of a national liberation movement. Salah Ameidan is willing to risk his life, his career, his family and his nationality to run for a country that doesn’t exist: Western Sahara.
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He was forced to join Morocco’s junior athletics team, under threats to his family. By 1999 he was the triple cross-country champion for Morocco, had won 2nd place in the Africa Championships and was two-time Arab World Champion.

During a race in 2003, he pulled out a Sahrawi flag – illegal in Morocco and a symbol of the independence movement – and waved it across the finish line. Knowing he could never return to Morocco safely, he sought political asylum in France and has been there ever since. He was offered citizenship by France and Spain, but refused both, saying he would never run under any flag but that of a liberated Western Sahara.
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​Read an interview with Saeed Taji Forouky about the documentary here.

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