A young pianist journeys into Sumatra with a question, bringing her music into the heart of the rainforest.

Deep within the Leuser Ecosystem of North Sumatra, the wild orangutans that have called these forests home for a million years are facing a rapidly changing landscape.

Hands Like Ours follows Singaporean pianist Hillary O’Sullivan as she explores our relationship with these incredible primates, the researchers dedicating their lives to protecting them, and the fragile ecosystem we share. The film takes her music from the Orangutan Haven into the Leuser forest itself, bridging the distance between Singapore’s city streets and the wild next door.

A young Sumatran orangutan beside its mother

Photograph: Ian Mun

The Leuser Ecosystem

The last place on Earth where wild orangutans, elephants, tigers and rhinos still co-exist in a single shared forest.The nearest wild orangutans to Singapore.

~11,700Sumatran orangutans remaining, a decline of 19.5% since 2016
~700Tapanuli orangutans, the rarest great ape on earth. An estimated 58, about 7% of the species, were killed by landslides in November 2025
~15bntonnes of carbon held in the peat beneath the Sumatran forest floor

Photograph: Elaine Lim

Director’s vision

This project is about a shared emotional inheritance. The forest is where all of us come from, and the orangutans are the part of that family that never left it. Singapore sits just two generations away from our own history of plantations and primary jungle, a memory our modern city has largely left behind.
By bringing music directly into the Leuser Ecosystem, we want to collapse the distance between Singapore’s urban landscape and the frontline of wildlife conservation. The Sumatran rainforest is close enough to be called our backyard, and our goal is to show why it must be cared for like home.

Elaine Lim, Co-Director, Producer

Photograph: Ian Mun