Le silence de la forêt is a film about the difficulty for even the most well-intentioned person to know and respect another culture. In this case, the problem is so acute that there is even heated debate over what to call that 'other'. The subtitles in the film use the familiar word 'pygmies', a relatively pejorative European term; the Bantu or villagers' expression for the same group, Babingas, carries similar negative connotations. These highly specialized, tropical rainforest hunter-gatherers should perhaps be called by their own ethnonym, Aka, MoAka (sing.) and BaAka (pl.) 'Pygmies' were first introduced to a wide Western reading public through the now controversial, romanticized account of Colin Turnbull, The Forest People (1961). This film is based on the similarly sentimental novel Le silence de la forêt by Etienne Goyemide. The film stars Eriq Ebouaney, well-known from playing Lumumba in the film of the same name, and is scored by Manu Dibango, the Cameroonian music legend. The fact that this film is the first to focus on the exploitation and racism between more modern Africans and an autochthonous people, so ironically reminiscent of the attitudes of European colonists towards Africans, makes it even more unusual and fascinating. The film's hero Gonaba, unlike many Africans educated in Europe, decides to return to his homeland of the Central African Republic, full of ideals for fulfilling the promises of independence.