• Director(s):

    LEPETIT (Sylvain)

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2023

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

The Mikea are a little-known ethnic group that live in the forest that bears their name in south-west Madagascar. The last nomadic hunter-gatherers on the island, their way of live is threatened.

There are fewer than 2,000 of them left, but they have never been granted official status as an indigenous people, as Madagascar has not ratified the International Convention on Indigenous Peoples. Dressed in masks and armed with blowpipes, they feed exclusively on what they find in the forest: tubers, birds and honey. From the 1980s onwards, their forest, nicknamed the "green desert" because it grows mainly on sand, was decimated by massive clearing to grow maize. The rush was driven by strong demand from Réunion Island to feed livestock. Little by little, the vital resources of the Mikéa went up in smoke.