Director: Claude Barras

Featured voices: Babette De Coster, Benoît Poelvoorde, Martin Verset

Swiss animator Claude Barras widens his canvas following the small but perfectly formed 2016 orphanage-set classic ‘My Life as a Courgette’ for a gorgeously rendered eco fable set in Borneo. It begins, harrowingly, with the murder of a female orangutan who was carrying her baby son. He is adopted by 11-year-old Kéria (De Coster) who calls him Oshi. Kéria’s father Mutang (Poelvoorde) works in a palm oil plantation. Her late mother was an indigenous activist from the local Penan people. When her cousin Selaï (Verset), who grew up in the forest, comes to visit, Kéria is initially rude and dismissive of him, but they find common ground as they spend time together. When the children get lost in the forest, Selaï teaches Kéria about her heritage and the Penan’s beliefs, while her father worries about her whereabouts. As well as members of Kéria’s extended family, the children also encounter rapacious developers trying to intimidate the indigenous people into giving up their land. Working without co-writer Céline Sciamma this time around, Barras nevertheless manages to present the children as realistically flawed and occasionally selfish, but brave and resilient too. The adults are presented with equal complexity, and, thankfully, the script eschews depictions of the indigenous peoples as inherently noble. Amusingly, Kéria and Selaï’s grandfather, a village elder, has a mobile phone with an ‘Eye of the Tiger’ ringtone, the meaning of which becomes clear later. In a respectful touch, extended snatches of Penan dialogue without subtitles also feature, but the figures are expressive enough so as to convey any meaning, and Barras renders the lush and richly populated forest in gorgeous, dazzling colour. A gentle but rousing and ultimately optimistic call to arms that encourages collective action in the face of exploitation.

David Willoughby

Follow David on Bluesky @davidwilloughby.bsky.social