Automatische concepten

English summary

This beautifully filmed documentary was the winner of IDFA 2013! As a young man, the American Louis Sarno was enthralled by a song on the radio. He traced the sound to the rainforests of Central Africa, where he found its source among the Bayaka, a Pygmy tribe of hunters and gatherers. He never left them, and for the past 25 years he has lived as one of them. He speaks their language and has a son, Samedi, whose mother is Bayakan.

Over the years he collected over a thousand hours of unique musical recordings, which he recently donated to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England. When the newborn Samedi was seriously ill, Louis promised that one day he would show his son the United States. Now the time has come to make good that promise: he takes the 13-year-old Samedi with him to his homeland.

In New York he visits his old friend Jim Jarmusch, who mainly recalls their university years together, and how Louis changed after his first trip to the Bayaka. Louis’s rich brother, who plays golf in his office, is amazed how their two lives have taken such different courses. While Samedi seems well able to handle American life, Louis feels like a stranger in his former world.