They Stole Our Shadows

Australia, 1929.
Bagaa, born to an Aboriginal mother and an Irish father who died on the front lines at Verdun, finds herself alone in the bush at the age of eleven after her mother is stung by a shellfish whose venom is more dangerous than that of a cobra. Raised far from the populated towns of Mundugu (the white people) but also far from her mother’s tribe, Bagaa, who had been told by her mother to keep her distance from men, decides to walk north. Along the way, she adopts a female dingo, a loyal and courageous companion in her solitude, crosses paths with Japanese pearl divers, and escapes a thousand natural dangers and hostile Mundugu who see her as nothing more than a savage.
One evening, while Bagaa is swimming alongside a whale shark, Wan, a very tall sailor, arrives by sea in a canoe. He tells her that she is the witness his tribe has been looking for and that he will take her to his island, far to the north. After a turbulent journey, they land on the shores of the Yawijibaya, a tribe of gentle giants. The tribe of 300 people, who have lived in self-sufficiency by the ocean for centuries, know they are under threat. Bagaa then realizes that her role is to bear witness to the destruction of the Yawijibaya tribe by white men.
Ninety years later, Bagaa finally recounts what happened to this tribe and highlights the atrocities committed by white men in the name of “civilization.”