Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Owen, Chris / All Films

Gogodala

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:26:00 GMT

This film examines the implications of the Australian colonial era for the Gogodala people of the Fly River Delta, Western Papua New Guinea. Excessive missionary zeal, tolerated and encouraged by the government, contributed to the almost total destruction of Gogodala art and culture. More recently, an indirect grant from the Australian government has enabled the people to reconstruct a traditional longhouse, along with a new meaning and function: as a cultural center.

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Malagan Labadama

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

Malagan Labadama
Buy Now: $320.00

The Melanesian island of New Ireland is a province of Papua New Guinea and lies in the Bismarck Archipelago four hundred miles northeast of New Guinea. For the people of the Mandak region of New Ireland the most dramatic and complex ceremonial events in their community are those surrounding death. A malagan is a carved, painted representation, given ceremonially in honor of a deceased person as a final mortuary offering; the term may also refer to the spirit represented by the carving, or to the festivities accompanying its presentation.

This is the story of the three Kaparau brothers from Pantagin village, Eliakim, Raymond and Anton, who organize a malagan labadama for their deceased kinsman Buk-Buk. Buk-Buk had been the paramount lulai (chief) of the Mandak region, had served as a government employee under the German colonial administration, and witnessed the Japanese and Australian occupations. Elaborate preparations that last for months, tatanua dancers performances and the slaughtering of large numbers of pigs are all a part of the malagan and are all portrayed in this superbly photographed film.

The filming coincided with the fieldwork of Elizabeth Brouwer, an Australian anthropologist who served as a consultant for the film. Dr. Brouwer's dissertation topic was this particular malagan. There is contradictory information about these rituals. According to Dr. Roy Wegner of the University of Virginia, this memorial was not a re-enactment of a defunct tradition but a typical lengthy ritual that continues to thrive in New Ireland. Stephen Madana, et al, of New Ireland feels that this tradition is fading as there are not many people left who can carve a malagan and that people are too busy to mount a memorial or incur the expenses. A hopeful benefit of this film will be to convince young Mandaks to be more involved with village life and generate interest in future rituals.

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Man Without Pigs

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

Man Without Pigs
Buy Now: $320.00

John Waiko is the first Papua New Guinean to reach the status of professor. After receiving his doctorate from the Australian National University, he traveled back to his home village of Tabara to celebrate the achievement with his own people of the Binandere clan. Although John has a history of long schooling in village culture and has been educated in Port Moresby, London, and Canberra, he had little knowledge of ritual and neither customary wealth in the form of pigs nor a long list of favors given and alliances established. When John and his family decided to put on a dance-drama to welcome his return and assert his accomplishment, they were met with challenges and skepticism.

Man Without Pigs offers a rare insight into the antagonism aroused when conflict between custom and western values occurs in an isolated community. It is the most recent film by Chris Owen, who has collaborated on many of the major films from and about Papua New Guinea in the past decade.

"Tabara village, John's birthplace, is a community where no one works for money, no one pays for things with money and there are no wheels. His family, who have always lived there, expect John to compete and advance within the village, according to village rules, but he is not as alert to the detail of ritual, and the forces that flow in the village, as some of his age mate rivals. John's strength is that he can intervene in the outside world to secure benefits for the Tabara community. His family wish him to be a man of status within the village; his rivals want to have the right to make John carry their message to the outside world."
— Hank Nelson, John Waiko's academic advisor at ANU was invited to Tabara as a guest of honor.

SELECTED SCREENINGS & AWARDS

International Jurors' Prize, Dendy Awards for Best Australian Cinema, Sydney Film Festival

Best Documentary, Hawaii International Film Festival

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The Red Bowmen

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 08:59:00 GMT

The Red Bowmen
Buy Now: $320.00

Every year, a ritual known as Ida is performed by the Umeda people, who inhabit the dense primary forest of the Waina-Sawanda district of West Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Ida, the central social and cultural drama of the Umeda, is a fertility ritual, in which a dominant theme is the metamorphosis of the cassowaries.

An ethnography by anthropologist Alfred Gell, Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries, complements the film.

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Tighten the Drums

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

Tighten the Drums
Buy Now: $320.00

In the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea, the Enga people have developed the art of body decoration as a visual language. Using earth paints, tree oils, bird plumes, human hair, and a variety of plants, the Enga turn the body into a medium for an expressive and dramatic symbolism. Tighten the Drums shows the diverse forms of body art in both daily life and ritual in Enga village society.

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Bridewealth For A Goddess

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

Bridewealth For A Goddess
Buy Now: $320.00

The film documents the last performance of the ritual for the fertility goddess Amb Kor, in the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Shot over a period of approximately 15 years, the anthropologists and filmmakers have been participant-observers during a time of pivotal change for the clans of the Kavelka tribal group.

The film is narrated by the headman, Ru, who speaks directly to us about the clans recent problems, infant mortality, and decision to return to previously abandoned tribal territories. The arrival of the ancient female spirit Amb Kor comes to him in a dream and he is convinced that in order to regain their former strength and health the clans must perform this ritual for the Goddess.

A tremendous effort ensues and different styles of anthropological analysis, both Marxist and Capitalist, are brought to bear on the meaning and purpose of the cult activity. One clansmen tells us that the Lutheran church condemns the cult ritual as the work of the devil but that the Catholic missionaries are more supportive. In the end, participation in the ritual by anyone who has been baptized in the Christian church is forbidden. Meat distribution, clan alliances, and the symbolic bridewealth for the Goddess are observed.

Near the end of the film we see a distinctly older Ru watching the ritual on a monitor. We learn that the filming happened 14 years earlier and young men are no longer interested in carrying on the clan traditions. Ru watches himself lead the last ritual of Amb Kor at Kuk.

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