Le Voyage cinématographique de Gaston Méliès dans les mers du Sud et en Extrême-Orient

In 1912-1913, Gaston Méliès, brother of Georges Méliès, undertook a ten-month long trip around Asia-Pacific. While Georges was making imaginary trips in his Montreuil studio, Gaston was travelling for real, to the most remote places. Boarding an ocean liner in San Francisco, he journeyed to Polynesia, New Zealand, Australia, Java, Singapore, Cambodia, and finally Japan, shooting no less than 64 movies, either documentaries or fictions, of which only a few have survived. Some of them were among the first ones ever filmed on location in Tahiti, Java, Singapore, and Cambodia. Moreover, Gaston Méliès was the first filmmaker to give fiction roles to Tahitians, Maoris, Aborigines and Cambodians. He died shortly after this trip, in 1915, quickly falling into oblivion, as the world was engulfed in World War I. This documentary pays tribute to this long-forgotten pioneer cinema.