Yorgos

Easter Island is home to the most isolated human population on Earth. A small volcanic land where little more than 4.000 people live, known around the world for its monolithic stone statues, the moai.
 
We follow a French who settled on the island 20 years ago leaving behind him his work at the European Space Agency. He met his wife on the island, the "Mama Piru, a Rapa Nui undisputed leader and tireless fighter for the rights of his people, she works to conserve the scattered remnants of Rapa Nui heritage. They have been exceptional witnesses of the massive transformation that has swept the island.

Ever since Kevin Costner brought the Hollywood juggernaut to the island and put Rapa Nui on the big screen, this remote society has been thrust inexorably towards modernity. The leap from agricultural self-sustenance to an economy based on a flourishing tourism industry has generated more money and ambition on Easter Island than ever before.

Individualism and increasing competition are splintering the island. Most Rapa Nui today long for material goods: new cars, bikes, houses or businesses. Amongst them we'll follow a Rapa Nui Businessman who  distributes fish caught locally across the island and to the continent. He has doubled the price of fish in just four years. He believes it is a fair game – if he doesn’t profit someone else will.

Some of the inhabitants have chosen to return to the land in an effort to preserve their freedom and identity against encroaching materialism. They are what the islanders know as Yorgos. Land has been until recently a common good. The Yorgos occupy and enclose land to cultivate and breed livestock, even if it is part of the National Park declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, due to its exceptional archaeological wealth.


Director's note

Rapa Nui or Easter Island has become a mythical island, a symbol of the unexplainable. Until now,  the image that has been projected to the world of the reality of Easter Island and of the Rapanui ethnic group is, however, a static one. The Rapa Nui culture has been and is much more than the shadow of its monuments.

Easter Island has a long history of submission to foreign forces. The Rapa Nui have suffered slavery, loss of rights and the expropriation of their lands for centuries, reaching the brink of extinction by the end of the 19th century. Recently UNESCO has declared the Rapa Nui National Park a World Heritage Site to protect what remains of the ancient Rapa Nui culture. This has led to an explosion of increasing interest in this once exploited, then forgotten island. A conflict is now flourishing between native Rapa Nui and newcomers, local customs and new values, ancient legacy and contemporary culture, economic development and identity. The right to land, the search for identity, tourism and heritage, are all elements that will entwine to bring to life this portrait of a unique culture struggling to find its place in a world where remoteness no longer has the same meaning.