Song from the Forest

In 1985, 30-year-old renowned American author Louis Sarno packed up the last of his belongings, scraped up $500, and bought a one-way ticket to the Central African Republic. A brilliant musicologist, Sarno was lured by the music of the Bayaka people, pygmies living deep in the African rainforest cut off from all modern civilization. Now, more than 25 years later, Sarno still lives there with a few additions: his Bayaka wife and their 13-year-old son Samedi. When Samedi was younger he fell ill, and Sarno promised him that he would one day take him to see the world. That day has come. Sarno and Samedi set out for America, the first time the illiterate teenager has ever set foot out of the rainforest, and the first time Sarno has returned in years. An eye-opening documentary about family, heritage, and discovery, SONG FROM THE FOREST achieves the impossible by putting us in the shoes of a foreigner in a seemingly nonsensical world: the United States. (In English and Yaka with subtitles) —C.P.