A film by Lavinia Currier Based on the memoir by Louis ... - FDb.cz

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THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR) The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country near the exact center of the African continent with a population of 4.4 million. This territory the size of Texas is home to more than 80 ethnic groups, each with its own language, that include the Bayaka pygmies living in its southwestern tropical forests. More than 35% of its people practice indigenous religions and their animistic beliefs and practices strongly influence the Christian majority. The republic has a strong executive branch (president, vice president, prime minister, and council of ministers), and weak legislative and judicial branches. Its civil society is very weak with a highly unequal income distribution. The United Nations ranks CAR as one of the world’s poorest nations with a Human Development Index of 159 out of the 169 countries with data. Constraints to economic development include its land-bound position, a poor transportation system, a largely unskilled work force, factional fighting and a legacy of misdirected economic policies. Hydroelectric plants supply the capital Bangui with limited electricity while other towns rely on diesel generators. Fuel supplies must be barged in on the Ubangi River or trucked overland through Cameroon, resulting in frequent shortages of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
Subsistence agriculture and forestry are the backbone of the CAR economy with about 60% of the population living in outlying areas. The agricultural sector generates more than half of GDP. Over 4,000 Central Africans work in the forestry sector, more than in any other private sector, which accounts for around 20% of the export receipts. The CAR has rich but largely unexploited natural resources of diamonds, gold, uranium, and other minerals. Its over 2,000 miles of navigable waterways include the primary Ubangi River which joins the Congo River. In 2010, CAR became the first African country member of the International Labor organization (ILO) to ratify the ILO Indigenous and Tribal People Convention 1989 (No. 169 ) that recognizes the rights of all such peoples to be consulted and to participate fully at all levels of decision-making that concern them. THE BAYAKA The Bayaka are a semi-nomadic people that traditionally survive in the forests of southwestern Central African Republic (CAR), northern Congo and the western Congo River basin. These small-sized people (average 4.5 feet) along with Baka, BaMbuti, Efe and other related groups, often called pygmies, are the largest group of hunter-gatherers left on earth, estimated at 250,000. The Bayaka are renowned for their exceptional knowledge of the forest and its animals, insects and medicinal plants. They rank among the world’s most skilled animal trackers. Their heightened senses can detect subtle animal tracks even in dense forest foliage. They hunt with large nets while whistling to each other like birds to report their locations. Today, most Bayaka spend part of the year near a village where they trade their forest products for produce, and other goods. Periodically they return to the forest and clear undergrowth for their camps under the tree canopy. Entire families can fit inside their waist-high beehive huts fashioned out of bent branches covered with large leaves. A distinctive mark of beauty in Bayaka appearance is the careful chipping of their teeth into pointed triangle shapes. Music celebration is highly-valued in Bayaka life. Their frequent call-and-response songs harmonize with the sounds of birds, crickets and cicadas and other forest life around them. The complexity of their music arises from their amazing ability to reflect the complex sounds of the forest around them. Their rich-voiced singing is based on pentatonic five-part harmonies organized in 64-beat cycles. THE CONGO BASIN: THE LOCATIONS FOR OKA! The Congo is the earth’s fifth longest river and Africa’s second longest (after the Nile) that drains a basin of over 1.5 million square miles from the highlands of the East African Rift in Zambia to the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic ocean. It is also the world’s deepest river with the second largest volume of water
Page 1 and 2: DADA Films & Required Viewing prese
Page 3 and 4: Although he is plagued by</
Page 5 and 6: is based on the local area’s prev
Page 7 and 8: outside world - “someone to emerg
Page 9: to forest people, that take 64 puls
Page 13 and 14: The African Forest Elephant of the
Page 15 and 16: KRIS MARSHALL (Larry) ABOUT THE CAS
Page 17 and 18: Eyes shot entirely on location in H
Page 19 and 20: LOUIS SARNO - CO-WRITER Louis Sarno
Page 21 and 22: ecorded in 20 different countries.
Page 23: ROLAND FILMS AND JAMES BRUCE PRODUC

A film by Lavinia Currier Based on the memoir by Louis ... - FDb.cz

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