2009 • 30' • French
Director(s): Philippe Lespinasse • Producer(s): Grand Angle Productions • Coproducer(s): France Télévisions • Format(s): HD
With its wooden houses on piles, channels with hundreds of pirogues reaching each part of the village and going from house to house, and tree-trunks by the thousand floating nearby, Makoko is an incredible village on piles. 60,000 people are thought to live in this suburb of Lagos. Fishermen mostly, coming from Ganvié (another pile-dwelling village, in Benin) or from the inland villages of Nigeria. The inhabitants work on Lagos harbour, run little shops, sell water and gas, or work for the wood traders. From the sky, it looks like a huge village crossed by hundreds of channels. Houses are sometimes isolated, sometimes reached by wooden foot bridges. The ones belonging to big families, or those lucky enough to have an income, are on two floors. All are made of wood and covered with bamboo, standing on piles driven deep into the mud of the lagoon. You can only get around the village by boat.
