Song from the Forest

Michael Obert’s documentary concerns an American named Louis Sarno who, after hearing a song on the radio that intrigued him, traced the song to the Bayaka Pygmies of the Central African rainforest. And there he stayed for the next 25 years, amassing more than a thousand hours of Bayaka music while raising a son. To fulfill a promise he made to the now-13-year-old boy, he travels from Africa to New York. And in the process Obert’s film, underscored by a stirring musical score, explores the differences between one world and the next.