Projects Supported
SUKUNDIMI WALKS BEFORE ME
A devastating copper-gold mine is proposed to be built near one of the last remaining great rivers; the children of the Sepik embark on an indigenous-led resistance to protect her waters. Sukundimi Walks Before Me, explores this existential fight through lyrical expressions of existence, resistance and life along the mother river.
Directed by Matasila Freshwater & Lachlan McLeod
Produced by Maria Tanner, Kerry Warkia, Emmanuel Peni & David Elliot-Jones
PRODUCTION GRANT
SYNOPSIS
The Sepik River is the mother line for Papua New Guinea communities. Winding through mountains and rainforests, she is the crucial vertebrae connecting and supporting the region’s rare biodiversity and spiritual consciousness. But her livelihood and her communities are threatened by the proposal of a copper-gold mine being built at her headwaters, which could extract, erode and pollute an environment that she has sustained for millennia.
The children of this river, led by Manu Peni, create a grassroots campaign to stop the mine from being built, resisting the forces of colonial bureaucracy and Western narratives of ‘development’ by invoking the Spirit of the river and indigenous knowledge.
SUKUNDIMI WALKS BEFORE ME, explores this existential fight through lyrical expressions of existence, resistance and life along the mother river.
Images provided by Brown Sugar Apple Grunt Productions and Walking Fish Productions
Poster (tap to enlarge)
