The Silence of the Forest

A film about the difficulty for even the most well-intentioned person to know and respect another culture. In this case, the problem is so acute that there is even heated debate over what to call that 'other.' The subtitles in the film use the familiar word 'pygmies,' a relatively pejorative European term; the Bantu or villagers' expression for the same group, Babingas, carries similar negative connotations. These highly specialized, tropical rainforest hunter-gatherers should perhaps be called by their own ethnonym, Aka, MoAka (sing.) and BaAka (pl.)

Directors

Didier Ouénangaré, Bassek Ba Kobhio

Writers

Bassek Ba Kobhio, Étienne Goyemide, Didier Ouénangaré, Marcel Bealieu

Released

May 19, 2003

Language

French