The Price of the Sun

“They drive us out and threaten to kill our herds,” says a shepherd in a desert in central Morocco. He is part of a small group of nomadic Berbers that has grazed its sheep in this arid region since time immemorial. The land is considered communal property.

Filmed over a period of six years, The Price of the Sun shows how the construction of an immense sustainable energy park is destroying the Berber group’s traditional way of life. A promotional video claims the energy park will become the largest in the world, covering an area equivalent to 12,000 soccer fields. What the video does not mention is that the multibillion-dollar project comes at the expense of the shepherds, who no longer have access to the land where their sheep once grazed.

Filmed in CinemaScope, the documentary shows how the shepherds are gradually backed into a corner and must give up their way of life. To survive, some of the men now illegally excavate lead ore in an abandoned mine. Green energy has an “innocent” image for some, but for this Berber community, it all bears a striking resemblance to the colonial era, when their ancestors were driven from their land and killed.