BE’ JAM BE – THE NEVER ENDING SONG
Caroline Parietti, Cyprien Ponson | Malaysia, France 2017 | 85 Min. | OmeU
Far away, in the heart of the old-growth forests of Borneo, exists a world where the trees and the rivers are not resources to be used, but sources in and of themselves. In the Malaysian state of Sarawak, the Penan, a nomadic people gradually forced to settle by the “force of things”, are dispersed in large territories, which have been decimated by the deadly trade in wood and palm-oil. In Sarawak, “the ones from upstream” are the first affected by deforestation. The Penan, once a nomadic people, are caught in the eye of that storm: how to go on living when the landscape which brought meaning to existence disappears? A film led by the songs of those who refuse to give in, tells of the intimate interweaving of a sweet and secret way of life with the fight which rages in the shadows of the big trees: that of those few who refuse to resign themselves and give in to the demons of capitalism, who believe that life is to be spent together, heart to heart, with the forest as both a space of life and of the future.
Director: Caroline Parietti, Cyprien Ponson
Cinematography and Sound: Caroline Parietti, Cyprien Ponson / Paul Maillardet
Editing: Alix Lumbreras
Producers: Caroline Parietti, Cyprien Ponson
Awards
Prix Buyens-Chagoll (Visions du Réel – Switzerland) Prix Île d’or (FIFIG – France)
Best Pacific full length film (Ânûû-rû Âboro – New Caledonia)
Best Feature Film by Young Audience (Corsica Doc – France)
Grand Prize (Green Image Film Festival – Japan)
Second Prize International Feature Films (FINCA – Argentina)
Special mention International Feature Films (Whakapapa Film Festival – Italy)
Third Prize International Competition (BIFED – Turkey)
Biographies
The co-directors, Cyprien Ponson and Caroline Parietti met during a master’s degree in documentary writing (CREADOC/France), after personal journeys in anthropology and community social work. Their work explores issues of memory, violence and resistance in the margins. “Fight against forms” or “forms of struggle”, cinema is for them a way to invent new imaginaries and to experience the world, as well as to get involved in it or against what revolts.
