The Bagyeli Pygmies at the Fringes of the World
Director François-Philippe Gallois
Countries
Duration 85 min
Synopsis
« Before, we were poor but we didn’t know it because we lived contentedly in the forest” ... Discovering the outside world, the Bagyéli Pygmies have seen that they are poor. Their hunting culture allowed them to live in the jungle of South Cameroon for thousands of years, but outside they were considered like animals or slaves by a society dominated by farmers. And when the Exxon pipeline arrived in the Pygmie’s forest aided by the World Bank, our bureaucracy is worse than the farmers. Through the point of view of 3 attractive Pygmies, the movie encounter the complexities of change that the real world imposes on hunter-gatherers. Following their personal dreams of integration, this 3 characters tell us of a universal story about a small population that doesn’t want to disappear.”
« Before, we were poor but we didn’t know it because we lived contentedly in the forest” ... Discovering the outside world, the Bagyéli Pygmies have seen that they are poor. Their hunting culture allowed them to live in the jungle of South Cameroon for thousands of years, but outside they were considered like animals or slaves by a society dominated by farmers. And when the Exxon pipeline arrived in the Pygmie’s forest aided by the World Bank, our bureaucracy is worse than the farmers. Through the point of view of 3 attractive Pygmies, the movie encounter the complexities of change that the real world imposes on hunter-gatherers. Following their personal dreams of integration, this 3 characters tell us of a universal story about a small population that doesn’t want to disappear.”