Migrating with Disabilities : Between Structural Obstacles, Uprootedness and Longing. A Conversation with Ignacio Acconcia.

by Wejdane Ben Chaabane | May 19, 2026 | Blog, Policies and Regulations

“Imade” is a short documentary that tells the story of its eponymous character Imade Ouchghenou, a 21 year old deaf young man who arrived in Spain from Morocco at the age of 16 through the sea. Adopting an introspective lens, the documentary tackles the intersection of migration and disability through Imade’s personal journey in Spain. By delving into Imade’s psyche and lived experience, viewers are invited to reflect on privilege, ableism, and the legal and social barriers that individuals with disability face on a daily basis in Spain.

Right off the bat, the documentary starts with a cover version of the iconic Algerian song “Ya rayah” of Dahmane el Harrachi, a song that has become a migration anthem, encapsulating the North African diasporic identity. It captures the ailments of migration, uprootedness, the hurdles of migrating only to always feel home-bound at the end. The song sets the tone of the documentary, and the lyrics foreshadow its events :”Ya rayah win msafer trouh taaya wa twali” translated as “Oh, where are you going? You’ll emigrate, get tired, and come back.”

I had the chance to attended the screening and the Q&A of the documentary at Casal de Barri Pou in Barcelona organized by Fundació Bayt al- Thaqafa at the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities in the presence of the Documentary filmmaker Ignacio Acconcia and Imade Oughghenou. Following the screening, I sat down with Ignacio to exchange about his work and the motivation behind making it.

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Wejdane Ben Chaabane: The documentary highlights the isolation of migration and the yearning for belonging, heavily exacerbated by Imade’s disability. What prompted you to tell his story?

Ignacio Acconcia: I am always keen to portray strong characters and identity characters, all my movies have that in common. Over the past years, the subject of unaccompanied minors in Spain has been a recurring social issue in the public discourse and media. I have also taken interest in how Moroccan migrants live in my city, Barcelona, and I was curious to learn more about their journey and how they deal with their lives and especially how they manage their relationship with their families back home. We don’t often see the other side of this journey, the introspection, the way that they deal with their migration grief.

Albeit widely different, I connected with Imade because of my personal story. In fact, my father emigrated from Argentina to Spain, and I witnessed his experiences and lived vicariously through the ailments of migration. I have always wondered how migrant people deal with homesickness and missing special moments with their families. Joyous moments, but also those who carry grief like funerals. My dad never got the chance to properly say goodbye to some people back home.

Imade’s journey tells a similar story, he’s also vacillating between two worlds, and his disability is not a flaw, but rather a characteristic that makes him unique, and I thought that is something worth exploring and capturing.

W.B.C: Although it’s a documentary, the rendering of Imade’s experience was highly poetic, we dive into the character’s psyche through curated aesthetic elements such as the muffled sound and the visual water element. Could you tell us a bit about these choices?

I.A: For me, the difference between fiction and documentary can be very flimsy sometimes. I am not a strong believer in genre divides, which I tried to reflect with these choices. Indeed, sound design played a big part in transcribing the experience of Imade. We wanted to make something different and create an ambiance sound to transport the viewer into the reality of Imade instead of describing it or showing it by actions in the movie. As for the water element, it has a symbolic dimension in the documentary. It was the vehicle by which Imade arrived illegally in Spain, but also a reflection of his état d’âme. We see water in several instances in the documentary and in various forms. We see him in symbiosis with the element, other times underwater, or looking at the turbulent water trailing behind the boat when he was going back to Morocco, all reflecting the complex and intricate nature of Imade’s relationship to this element.

W.B.C: What struck me in the documentary was the seemingly unfiltered familial moments. How did you ensure the film authentically reflects Imade’s lived experience with deafness and migration?

I.A: It required spending uninterrupted time with Imade, tight logistics, luck and risk-taking. It was also about striking a balance between capturing raw moments without interfering, like the scene of the letter where the family discovers that Imade will visit them. Oftentimes, we only had one chance to get the right shot. For example, to capture the scene where Imade was facetiming his family to celebrate his sister’s birthday. We screen recorded the conversation for Imade’s phone without knowing how it would turn out, also because we had no agency over these moments with the language barrier.

Other moments or emotions had to be triggered but were there all along. Sometimes, the subjects can be conscious about the image that they want to show when they are filmed. Portraying vulnerability is one of the challenges in documentary filmmaking. That’s why it’s paramount that the subject can be surprised. Imade is a cheerful person by nature, he is a social and charismatic guy that has a very positive energy. That’s why I had to surprise him, challenge him to see beyond the surface and dig deeper beyond the social mask that we all wear as individuals.

W.B.C: What were the main challenges shooting Imade?

I.A: The main challenge was definitely communication. I have some basic knowledge of Catalan sign language, but it was insufficient to establish profound communication with Imade.That’s why we had the support of two social workers who knew him very well, and were able to translate. But despite the language barrier, we were able to connect and he noticed the genuine interest that we took in his story through our approach to him and his family. Other challenges were logistics permits, which required a lot of traveling in Morocco. But those hard times, and the delays led us to film very emotional scenes like the reunion scene with Imade’s family in Morocco.

W.B.C: How do you hope the film will influence conversations about inclusion for migrant individuals with disabilities?

I.A: I believe that getting to know the character of Imade, and his journey on screen is impactful as it makes the audience see his experience in a different way and empathize with it, without positioning him as a subject of study. Post-screening conversations are also important to exchange directly with the concerned people.

W.B.C: We sense the tug of war that Imade goes through in the movie. The risky journey he underwent to arrive in Spain, the structural obstacles and then all the hassle and barriers to go back home. At the end, do you think that Imade wanted to go back to Morocco for good ?

I.A: It’s obvious that Imade misses his family, but he is happy now in Spain. He found himself and perhaps, more importantly he found a deaf community, and with it, his peace. He was the only deaf guy in his town in Morocco, which could feel isolating. Imade invested so much to found a new home in Spain, he learned Catalan sign language and had to restart over. At the end, it’s not only about having a good economic position,as he feels better here because he found his place.

W.B.C: The documentary starts off and closes with a powerful song “Ya rayah”, which holds a special place in the North African collective unconscious, you chose a cover version of it. Could you tell us a bit more about it?

I.A: During my research on young Moroccan teenagers who arrived in Spain, someone shared this song with me. I listened to it and I knew it’s a very special song for North Africans in Europe. I picked this song as it talks about the emotional dimension from the migrant’s perspective that is dearly lacking in public discourse. We are exposed to polarizing content, numbers without faces or personal stories, and I wanted to bring this dimension to the topic of migration. I wanted a nostalgic rendering of the song to transcribe the emotional migratory fatigue and grief that comes with this experience.

Racial Prejudice:

In the post-Screening Q&A, Imade shared with the audience an incident that he encountered with the police in Spain who questioned him in the street. As he was trying to communicate to them that he was deaf, they mistook it for mockery. This incident is far from being anecdotal. In fact, this experience is a case of racial prejudice when migrant individuals are seen as suspicious and untrustworthy, trying to take advantage of the system. In other cases, racial prejudice can lead to confusing limited language proficiency of migrant individuals with lack of capacity. (Red Acoge, 2025)

Despite the legal framework that Spain has in place to support people with disabilities, considerable gaps remain for migrant individuals with disabilities. In fact, Immigration law (Organic Law 4/2000) and dependency law (Law 39/2006) impose legal requirements and conditional procedures that make the recognition and diagnosis of disabilities inaccessible and delayed, leaving migrants with disability unable to get assistance. According to the Permanent Immigration Observatory in 2018, only 2.2% of migrants residing in Spain had officially recognized disabilities, a figure that underestimates reality due to barriers to diagnosis and recognition. (Red Acoge, 2025)

References:

Red Acoge. (2025). Guía migrar con discapacidad: derechos, barreras y acompañamiento.

https://redacoge.org/recursos-materiales/guia-migrar-con-discapacidad/https://redacoge.org/recursos-materiales/guia-migrar-con-discapacidad/

España. (2000). Ley Orgánica 4/2000, de 11 de enero, sobre derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en España y su integración social. Boletín Oficial del Estado. https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2000-544

España. (2006). Ley 39/2006, de 14 de diciembre, de Promoción de la Autonomía Personal y Atención a las personas en situación de dependencia. Boletín Oficial del Estado. https://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-2006-21990

Acconcia, I. (Director). (2024). Imade, Documentary trailer, YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MkuFOvAHK0

In Catalonia and across Spain, several organizations advocate for the rights and inclusion of deaf and deafblind people, while also providing resources, interpretation services and community support: