Chief of the Beach

Samson Valesoa Ialy is returning to a world he knows intimately, yet no longer fully belongs to.

Born into an Antandroy chiefly lineage, he has spent much of his life moving between different cultures, beliefs and ways of understanding the world. Now, for the first time in more than thirty years, he is preparing to return to his father's ancestral homeland in southern Madagascar.

But this is no ordinary homecoming.

As drought, disappearing forests and the pressures of a changing world threaten the lives and livelihoods of communities across the Great South, Samson has an ambition: to travel between them, listen, challenge ideas and discover what might be possible if people came together.

Through music, ancestral connections and encounters that cannot be planned, the journey builds towards an extraordinary Gathering.

A destination he hopes to reach. An outcome nobody can predict.

At twelve, Samson left his family home and moved into a cave overlooking a beach where children were forbidden to go, for fear of being kidnapped by pirates. He went anyway, spending much of his adolescence there, growing up between the ocean and the unfamiliar world of travellers arriving on its shores.

Curiosity became his education. He taught himself languages, discovered surfing, embraced Rastafari and found inspiration in reggae, Shaolin Kung Fu and Qigong. Over time, he built a life around the ocean, becoming a guide, teacher and the driving force behind a community of young Malagasy surfers.

But there's more to Samson than his extraordinary past.

Generous, proud, philosophical and sometimes contradictory, he has a remarkable ability to connect with people. He's a dreamer with a builder's instinct, constantly imagining what might be possible and trying to make it happen.

Yet the same determination that makes him a natural leader can also become a burden.

Now, returning to his ancestral homeland, those qualities are about to be tested in an entirely different world.

Southern Madagascar is home to the Antandroy people, whose traditions, livelihoods and relationship with the land have developed over generations.

Along the coast, fishing communities work with the rhythms of the Indian Ocean. Inland, families maintain ways of living shaped by cattle, agriculture, ancestral customs and an intimate knowledge of their environment.

It is a place of remarkable beauty and cultural richness, but also one confronting profound change.

Repeated droughts and economic hardship have placed enormous pressure on communities across the south. Madagascar's extraordinary spiny forests are disappearing as the demands of survival collide with limited economic opportunities and infrastructure.

For many, the question is not simply how to preserve a way of life, but how to survive as the conditions sustaining it begin to change.

Samson's chiefly inheritance connects him to generations of family history. But after decades away, what responsibility does that inheritance place upon him?

Travelling from the coast towards his ancestral homeland, Samson sets out to meet communities across the region, listening to their experiences and opening conversations about the environmental and social pressures transforming their lives.

Through his family connections, the journey offers the possibility of reaching remote communities where encounters with people from outside the region may be exceptionally rare, or entirely new.

We travel alongside him through unfamiliar landscapes, meeting elders, families, musicians, young people and community leaders. Each encounter reveals another perspective on survival, tradition and the future.

There will be difficult conversations, conflicting ideas and unexpected discoveries. But also laughter, hospitality, reggae, Antandroy rhythms and moments of extraordinary human connection.

The journey builds towards an ambitious Gathering, bringing people together to share music, stories, knowledge and ideas for the future.

Whether Samson can turn these conversations into meaningful collective action remains uncertain.

Chief of the Beach moves between memory and the present, combining an animated exploration of Samson's childhood with observational filmmaking as his journey unfolds.

There is no external narrator. The story emerges through Samson, the people he encounters and the relationships that develop along the way.

The camera remains close to lived experience, allowing humour, disagreement, music and unexpected moments to shape the film. Reggae and traditional Antandroy rhythms are woven into its identity, carrying memory, emotion and cultural expression.

Rather than explaining southern Madagascar to an audience, the ambition is to experience its world alongside the people who inhabit it.

The film grows from a friendship spanning more than twenty years, beginning when Samson first taught me to surf.

Chief of the Beach is being developed with Samson, not simply about him.

Our ambition extends beyond making a documentary. Through collaboration with local communities, we're exploring how the project can create opportunities for participation, skills development, cultural exchange and lasting economic value.

We want the people whose lives and stories shape the film to have a meaningful role in its creation and in what it leaves behind.

The approach is still evolving, informed by the relationships, conversations and priorities that emerge throughout the journey.