La citadelle Europe

It is impossible to get a job in Benin if you don’t have any connections, Jonas and Roland relate. They are both over 25, yet neither has a job or a bank account. It is therefore time to broaden their horizons. The young men dream of Europe. There, past an endless desert and a dangerous body of water, it must be heaven on earth. One day, Jonas and Roland say goodbye to their families and leave for the North. They have 250 euros. It is a risky undertaking, but the young men see it as a rite of passage. If you can reach Europe, you are a man. By bus, truck and 4-wheel drive, Jonas and Roland travel deep into the Algerian desert. Filmmakers Gilles de Maistre and Stéphanie Lamorré recorded everything, sometimes with a hidden camera. The journey is full of obstacles. Intermediaries cheat, drivers ask exorbitant prices, and to top it all off, the travellers are abandoned in the middle of the desert. Everything costs sack loads of money, and every police check has to be paid off. In Algeria, even that doesn’t work any more. Jonas and Roland end up, bereft of their last penny, in an Algerian prison. This is how their dream ends, just like that of so many other Africans who will never set foot in the safely fenced-off Europe.