Cassowaries and forests: the knowledge of the Kasua

The documentary “On the Cassowary’s Trail” follows the clues left by a large bird in Papua New Guinea. Its search also sheds light on the Kasua people’s relationship with the forest they inhabit.

In Papua New Guinea, tracking a cassowary means reading the forest differently: a footprint, a half-eaten fruit or a gap in the vegetation can signal the passage of a bird that is hard to see. The documentary “On the Cassowary’s Trail” makes this search the starting point for an encounter with the Kasua and the ties that bind humans, animals and territory.

A bird followed by its tracks

The cassowary is a large bird, described in the press pack as capable of reaching almost two metres in height and weighing up to 80 kilos. But its size does not make it easy to observe. The documentary portrays it as elusive, fast and skilful in the forest. The expedition must therefore look for indirect clues: footprints in the mud, eaten fruit and disturbed vegetation.

These tracks are not just signs that an encounter may be possible. They provide information about how an animal moves and feeds in a dense environment. The search for the cassowary thus becomes a way of learning to observe the forest as a whole, rather than focusing only on the animal.

The Kasua call the cassowary the “Great Gardener”. According to France Télévisions’ presentation, it eats fruit and carries its seeds, thereby contributing to the regeneration of the forest. The press pack also highlights the bird’s place in the Kasua view of their territory and in their relationships with spirits. These ecological and cultural dimensions are connected, but are not one and the same: one describes an interaction between an animal and vegetation, the other a way in which a particular community understands its world.

The Kasua, inhabitants and experts on their territory

The film follows a French team accompanied by Kasua people and the anthropologist Florence Brunois-Pasina. She lived alongside them for more than thirty years and learnt their language, according to the press pack. The search for the cassowary therefore does not take place in a forest presented as separate from human beings: it unfolds in a territory inhabited, traversed and known by its residents.

This distinction matters. The forest is not an untouched backdrop for the expedition to reveal. The Kasua live there, observe its species and pass on knowledge about the relationships between them. France Télévisions reports that villagers, concerned about the animal’s declining numbers, take the initiative themselves to set out on its trail. The film is presented as an encounter between their knowledge of the environment and the work of the filming team, not as the discovery of a place without human history.

The press pack states that the expedition makes its way to Mount Bosavi, an extinct volcano rising to 2 500 metres. It describes a forest that is difficult to access and mentions marsupials, rare parrots and birds of paradise along the way. The territory thus takes centre stage in the film’s presentation: clues to one bird also lead to the other species that share its habitat.

The “Great Gardener” and the seeds of the forest

The name the Kasua give it takes on a concrete meaning here: as the animal moves through the forest, it helps the forest grow. France Télévisions’ press pack makes this role one of the expedition’s main threads.

Tracking then draws attention to a chain of relationships. An eaten fruit provides clues to a bird’s passage; movement can help transport a seed; the tree that produces it is itself part of an environment that is inhabited and used. This perspective connects elements that could be observed separately. It helps explain why the search for a single animal becomes a way of travelling across an entire territory.

In the documentary’s presentation, villagers are concerned about the cassowary’s declining numbers. The film also addresses the pressures that logging, agriculture and infrastructure place on Papua New Guinea’s forests. These changes affect both habitats and the human practices connected with them. For the Kasua, knowing the forest means drawing on knowledge accumulated through movement and passed down through generations.

France Télévisions also presents a replanting initiative undertaken by local people. It gives those accompanying the filmmakers a different role: they are not merely guides for an expedition that has come to film a bird, but actors shaping the future of their environment. The documentary thus links the quest for an animal to a question of continuity: how can the relationships that make life in this territory possible be preserved?

A documentary shaped by a long-standing relationship

“On the Cassowary’s Trail” is a 90-minute documentary written and directed by Jeremy Frey and Rémi Dupouy, according to France Télévisions. The press pack states that Florence Brunois-Pasina died in 2025, before the film was completed. The anthropologist had devoted more than thirty years to her relationships with the Kasua and developed a reflection on “interspecific attachment”, meaning the ties between beings of different species.

France Inter announces that the documentary will be shown on Monday 9 November 2026 at 21:05 on France 5. On screen, the search is shaped by this long-standing relationship with the Kasua, whose memory the film also preserves. The names of the directors and the anthropologist help place the project in context: a shoot built around encounter and expedition, at the intersection of animal observation and anthropology.