Savages

Borneo, Sarawak. Kéria is eleven and lives with her father in a house at the edge of the forest. He is Swiss and works for the company cutting that forest down. Her mother was Penan; she died, and Kéria never knew that side. One day a baby orangutan comes into the house, and they name him Oshi. Around the same time her Penan cousin Selaï arrives; his own village is up against the companies and he can no longer stay there. The three of them have to do something about the forest coming down. Claude Barras directs the stop-motion animation; eighty-seven minutes. Barras had previously made My Life as a Courgette, which was nominated for an Oscar. Savages was shown at Cannes in 2024. What is behind the film is real: logging in Borneo is displacing both the orangutans and the nomadic Penan.