The Last of the Sea Gypsies

In this one-hour documentary we share the extraordinary lives of two families of Sea Gypsies as they live on the waters of South East Asia, fishing and leading the traditional lives of nomads. They are born, and spend their whole lives, at sea, constantly balancing between the physical and spiritual worlds, asking the gods to give them good weather and plenty of fish. For over a thousand years sea gypsy people have lived in the Coral Triangle between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. But today they have lost most of their traditional fishing grounds to government controlled industrial fishing. Only a few Sama-Bajau and Moken families still live traditionally in houseboats. We will experience the sea gypsy traditional way of life. We won’t filter them through western eyes, rather just allow them to tell their own story with the camera as the silent observer recording as naturally as possible, their lives – physical, and spiritual as they are born and raised, live and die, on the sea.