TARIFA TRAFFIC

Tarifa, a city in the south of Spain is considered one of Europe's best beaches for surfing.

An early morning: Wind surfer’s sail across the clear blue sea and the first tourists are taking their places in the deck chairs. Just a few steps away a dead body is being tossed up on the shore by crashing waves.

They come when there the moon is full and the sea is smooth. The nights of the "pateras" provide the best condition for motorboats crossing the Straits of Gibraltar in the dark. They are filled to the hilt with ever-more people from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa. Many cannot swim and have nothing except for the clothes on their backs. And it doesn‘t take much for an overfilled boat to capsize or sink, leading to a catastrophe.

From a European perspective and with haunting images, the film takes a look at the people of Tarifa whose everyday life is influenced by the constant flow of illegal immigrants, searching for a better future in the fortress that is Europe. 

"What really made me want to make this film, with the emphasis that it now has, was a visit to the graveyards in Tarifa and Algeciras. Countless refugees are buried there, and their graves are only marked with a number. This anonymous death, the kind that friends and relatives never find out about, the kind nobody grieves for, somehow seems like dying twice. These people have not only been robbed of their life; their identity has also been taken away from them…"  Joakim Demmer