Aya

Aya is growing up in a hut by the sea. She likes to sleep in the sand, she is in love, she picks coconuts and looks after her little brother. When her mother asks her where she would like to live if she could choose freely, Aya answers: here, on Layou Island. But the water level is rising and the island off the Ivory Coast is sinking metre by metre into the sea. The old people say that it used to take two hours to walk from the cemetery to the water. Now the sea takes one grave after the other. The islanders have to rebury their dead, but even further inland they will not be safe. The sea will swallow us up, we must leave the island, say the old and the young. But Aya decides to stay.

The film alternates between documentary and fictional elements. The performer of Aya is not a professional actress, she plays in her own environment.