Runar Jarle Wiik / Norway / 2014 / 90min

Synopsis:

As one of the last indigenous sea nomads, Hook must make a courageous voyage to salvage the remains of his unique culture.

Hook grew up with the ocean as his universe; he is a sea nomad from a vanishing world. The film follows Hook from the bottom of the modern social ladder on a voyage into the heart of Moken territory off the coast of Myanmar. More than a quest to salvage the remains of his culture, he faces the universal questions of identity, love, loss, and belonging.

Director Bio:

Runar Jarle Wiik (b. 1967) graduated from London International Film School in 1988, and has since been involved in over a hundred film and television productions as either writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, or camera operator. In 1994 he made his feature film debut with The Bikini Season.

Since then, he has mainly been accepting assignments as D.O.P. on documentaries around the world. His mostly travels for film shoots or by himself. In recent years his interests and focus lie predominantly on documentaries that address the plight of indigenous peoples.

Director's Statement:

The Moken are one of the few human cultures left on the planet that point us to what we may have lost on the way to modernity. Today they are the last sea-nomads still spending their entire life at sea aboard their ocean-crossing dug-out boats (kabang). What is it that they might still offer us in our fast paced lives that we’ve forgotten? Now under threat, their ways may soon fade and slip away, and the cultural fabric of the world will become impoverished by their loss. I want to tell the Moken’s story to the world, so we may know them and what they represent, and very possibly learn a thing or two about human development. I will be filming inside the world of one of the most isolated small scale traditional societies left on the planet, the marine nomadic Moken people, who live at sea in the Mergui Archipelago off the coast of Burma, and on Mu Koh Surin, an island group far out in the Andaman Sea on the border between Burma and Thailand. I have been developing this film with them for more than five years and I know them intimately. I count them as friends as much as subjects and that connection will allow me to construct this film.

In the past ten years the population of free-roaming Moken have gone from over 10000 to well under 2000. Time is running out. Our main character, Hook, has become a close personal friend of mine. His people have expressed that although they are usually unwilling to relate to strangers (outsiders), they are now unreservedly positive towards my film initiative and the works of Project Moken.

Awards:

Audience Award 2014, Eurodok - European Documentary Film Festival:

Best Cinematography 2014, Nordic/Docs:

The Golden Chair Award 2014, The Norwegian Short Film Festival: Gullstolen -