TL;DR: The iconic desert landscapes from the movie belong to Western Sahara which is under Moroccan occupation. The indigenous population, Sahrawis, are marginalised by the Moroccan regime, who arrest natives for filming their own land while giving complete permission and assistance to Western film producers to shoot their scenes.
I highly recommend reading the article as it’s written by one of the locals themselves.
Why YSK: Seeing how The Odyssey has amassed popularity globally, it is important to know how the illegal occupation of the Western Sahara and the suffering of the inhabitants was swept under the rug in order to produce this film, especially since no other major media outlet wishes to cover this topic.
The written story was from a single quoted source, third-hand before it was on paper.
What’s your expectation here? Our news reports land claims in court based on “we tell stories of how this was ours always, and we don’t know who, how or why people were living here before us or died out so suddenly and brutally when our ancestors arrived.” Accuracy isn’t required for court, so it’s maybe okay for stories.