El Héroe Senegalés (The Senegalese Hero)
An undocumented Senegalese migrant living in Bilbao performs a selfless act of courage that turns him into a cause celebré and sparks a national conversation about immigration policy.
In June 2020, the video of a young Senegalese man leaping off a bridge to save an elderly man from drowning in Bilbao's River Nervión went viral. Soon after an online petition began circulating on Spanish websites seeking to grant Mouhammed Diof special legal residency, reigniting calls for the government to provide tens of thousands of young North African immigrants pathways for legal immigration.
The short graphic film El Héroe Senegalés by illustrator-director German Andino and aspiring filmmaker Mouhammed Diof re-animate his journey from Senegal to Tarifa and Bilbao, where an act of selflessness is transformed in a symbol for social change.
Award-winning Honduran animator and journalist who received the 2017 Gabriel García Márquez award for Latin American Journalism for his graphic novella "El Hábito de la Mordaza" ("The Habit of Silence"). He is founder of Bilbao Media Lab and co-producer of the Bidi Bidi Media Lab.
