Director: Michael Obert | Germany | Documentary | 2014 | 97 mins
Film source: The Film Collaborative
Sponsor: Hager Strategic
Introduced by David Rothenberg, music supervisor on Song from the Forest. David is a musician and philosopher, and author of numerous books on music and nature.
25 years ago the young American ethno musicologist Louis Sarno heard a song on the radio and followed its melody into the rainforest in Central Africa. He settled among the Bayka pygmies, got married to a member of the tribe, had a son, and became one of them. For more than two decades he recorded over 1000 hours of original Bayaka music, which he recently donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford in the UK. The story fascinated the German traveler/journalist Michael Obert who created this marvelous ethnographic documentary. The film opens with Sarno’s preparation to take his 13 years old son to a long promised trip to New York City. When visiting family and friends Sarno contemplates the choices he made and why he left behind the Western way of life. “You realize how artificial life here is”, shares Sarno in a candid conversation with his closest buddy Jim Jarmush. Through elegant contrast between urban life and beautiful images and sounds of nature, the film takes us into an enthralling and informative journey.