‘Make Spain great again’: does Melilla really need a Trump-style wall?

Role: Producer

Everyone in Melilla has some connection to the city’s most visible and controversial feature: a huge barbed-wire fence, which separates this Spanish port city from the rest of north Africa. Asylum seekers like Aboubacar wait for months in hidden forest camps to scale the fence, populist politicians like Jesús want to strengthen it, and both the Moroccan and Melillan economy depend on the 30,000 Moroccans like Youssra who cross through it every day to work. Will Melilla embrace its fate as a city embedded in Africa – or will it succumb to populist Trump-style demands to build a wall?

I filmed this on location in Melilla with shooting director, Max Duncan and local fixer Laura Varo Jimenez.

This was part of a 5-episode original documentary series that I developed and produced for The Guardian, called Divided Cities.

This episode had its premiere at Rotterdam.