We are proud to be working on a great new acclaimed documentary – SONG FROM THE FOREST – A FILM BY MICHAEL OBERT opening in New York on April 10 and then Los Angeles on April 17 and other cities to follow. The film had a great success on the festival circuit and recently wowed audiences in New York at Doc NYC and will be released across the nation in April.
This beautiful and moving film tells the story of Louis Sarno, a U.S. born ethnomusicologist, who once heard a song on AFROPOP- A PRI RADIO show that stuck with him. He was so enamored and entranced with this music, that he followed its origin all the way to the Central African rain forest — and never returned. SONG FROM THE FOREST follows Sarno’s amazing journey from the rainforest, where he met a Bayaki tribe woman and had a son, and back to New York more than 20 years later. The music, the images and the intimate access to Sarno and his son Samedi makes this film an in depth and personal journey as Sarno seeks to understand where he and his family truly belong.
SONG FROM THE FOREST is a modern epic set between rainforest and skyscrapers.
More information below:
SONG FROM THE FOREST
Tondowski Films & Friends and The Film Collaborative
present
A documentary by Michael Obert
Gorgeous.”
Indiewire
“A mesmerizing documentary.”
Variety
“A delicately seductive flow of scenes.”
The Hollywood Reporter
“A charming and beautifully filmed story.”
Screen International
“Spellbinding Documentary…”
Dot Earth New York Times
Coming to
US THEATERS in April 2015
New York
CINEMA VILLAGE
Opens April 10th
Director and Subjects will be attending
Los Angeles
LAEMMLE PASADENA PLAYHO– USE 7
Opens April 17th
other cities to be announced soon
96 MINUTES
IN ENGLISH AND YAKA, WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
THIS FILM IS NOT RATED
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY MICHAEL OBERT
PRODUCED BY ALEXANDRE TONDOWSKI and IRA TONDOWSKI
SONG FROM THE FOREST opens
NEW YORK on APRIL 10 – CINEMA VILLAGE
LOS ANGELES on APRIL 17 – LAEMMLE PLAYHO– USE
AND CITIES ACROSS THE NATION THEREAFTER
WWW.SONGFROMTHEFOREST.COM
THE BEAUTIFUL SOUNDTRACK IS AVAILABLE NOW:
WWW.CDBABY.COM
SYNOPSIS
As a young man, US-born ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno heard a song on an Afropop the PRI radio program that never let him out of its grasp. He followed the mysterious sounds back to the Central African rainforest, found his music with the Bayaka pygmies – and never came back. Today, 25 years later, Sarno is a full member of this community of hunters and gatherers. He has a son with a Bayaka woman, 13-year-old Samedi. As a baby, Samedi became seriously sick. As he lay dying, Sarno held him the whole night and promised him: “If you survive, one day I will show you the world from which I came.”
Now it is time to keep his promise, and so Sarno travels with his son from the African rainforest to a different jungle made of concrete, glass and asphalt – to New York City.
The award-winning documentary SONG FROM THE FOREST – A FILM BY MICHAEL OBERT takes us on this incredible journey with father and son providing an intimate reflection on the meaning of fatherhood and the sense of belonging. Sarno and Samedi meet family and friends including Sarno’s college roommate filmmaker/musician Jim Jarmusch, whose films Dead Man (1995) and Ghost Dog (1999) include characters reminiscent of Sarno and his life story.
SONG FROM THE FOREST narrates their victories, but also their defeats in a modern epic in which the shared journey of father and son steers towards a surprising reversal of roles and gives the viewer an intimation that the African rainforest and urban America, these apparently separated worlds, are not all that separate after all. Torn from his familiar surroundings, Sarno‘s fragile world is off balance in the US. The music of the Bayaka, existing only in his memory and the recordings he made becomes his inner voice and gives its pulse to the film. This traditional African music produces a tense contrast to the images from the contemporary US and evokes memories of the forest. The immense cultural divide between the Central African rainforest and the concrete jungle of New York City, rendered in the hypnotically atmospheric soundtrack as well as in patient and intimate images, forms a compelling and unifying backdrop to the various strands of the film. SONG FROM THE FOREST is a modern epic set between rainforest and skyscrapers.
SONG FROM THE FOREST will open theatrically in the US beginning on April 10 in New York, April 17 in Los Angeles and other cities across the nation after that.