Oscar winner Chris Nolan (Oppenheimer) is facing criticism for filming parts of his upcoming epic, The Odyssey, in the Western Sahara, most of which occupied by Morocco.

The acclaimed director spent 4 days filming the historical epic— which stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya — in the city of Dakhla, the capital of the Moroccan administrative region of Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab.

Western Sahara, a disputed territory, is classified as “non-self-governing” by the United Nations.

Home to the Indigenous Sahrawi people, it’s the last remaining African colonial state to achieve independence with Morocco still claiming control over the majority of its land.

However, a Morocco-proposed plan giving Western Sahara autonomy but Morocco ultimate sovereignty — similar to Spain’s relationship to the Canary Islands and Basque Country — picked up steam last year with the support of the U.S., U.K. and France.

Reps for Universal and Nolan did not respond yet to request for comment.

“Dakhla is not just a beautiful place with cinematic sand dunes. First and foremost, it is an occupied and militarized city whose Indigenous Sahrawi population is subjected to brutal repression by Moroccan occupation forces,” the festival said. It said the production should “stop filming in Dakhla and stand in solidarity with the Sahrawi people who have been under military occupation for 50 years and routinely imprisoned and tortured for their peaceful struggle for self-determination.”

Festival director María Carrión: “By filming part of ‘The Odyssey’ in occupied territory classified as ‘journalistic desert’ by Reporters Without Borders, Nolan and team, perhaps unwittingly, are contributing to Morocco’s repression of the Sahrawi people and to the Moroccan regime’s efforts to normalize its occupation of Western Sahara. If they understood the full implications of filming a high-profile movie in a territory whose Indigenous peoples are unable to make their own films about their stories under occupation, Nolan would be horrified.”

As reported by Forbes, the Ministry of Culture of the Polisario Front, nationalist Sahrawi group seeking to end the occupation through self-determination and armed resistance, issued a statement: “This act constitutes a dangerous form of cultural normalization with the occupation, and an unethical exploitation of art and cinema to whitewash the image of a colonial situation that is still imposed by force and met daily with the steadfast resistance of a people struggling for freedom and dignity.”

The Odyssey, which adapts Homer’s ancient Greek epic for the big screen, has also filmed in Morocco, Greece and Italy.

It’s set for a theatrical release from Universal on July 17, 2026; early tickets already selling out for screenings.

Elsa Keslassy contributed to this report.