Preview
Access required
Film not included in your subscription
You can preview the film, request purchase or access it through your institution.
About
Australia's most internationally renowned documentarists (Kildea, O'Rourke, Connolly/Robin Anderson) are part of a group of expatriates who honed their documentary filmcraft while residents of Papua New Guinea. Their films, brimming with wit and character, capture the energy and contradictions of a country in transition from a backward colony, to a young nation in the modern world.
But whose stories are they? Filmmakers are now often challenged about cultural rights, and the Western domination of representation. Taking Pictures explores the issues and pitfalls of filming across a cultural boundary - through interviews with Australian filmmakers and by sampling their powerful award winning documentaries about PNG that include First Contact, Trobriand Cricket, The Shark Callers of Kontu, Joe Leahy's Neighbours, Black Harvest, Cannibal Tours and Man Without Pigs. It also covers the work of indigenous PNG filmmakers, and their own experience of interpreting film and culture.
Taking Pictures is a inquiry into the practicalities, politics and aesthetics of the documentary experience.
"A 1930's black and white clip of Papua New Guinea (PNG) people opens this stunning documentary film. We never see the photographer, a white Australian explorer. The people in front of the camera are not actors yet they are acting. Victor Turner called life a performance and we are all in a play. In a documentary film we expect reality and yet only get a glimpse of what we want reality to be. The question is, are the people playing to the camera or is the action real? Is it part of reality or a play? For anyone interested in cultural ramifications of documentary film or ethnography this is more than a glimpse into the lives behind the lens and in front of it. I would highly recommend this film for college/university undergraduates, graduates and faculty."— Patricia Sarchet, MLS, State University of New York at Buffalo
Subjects:
Indigenous Studies:
Keywords:
- Papua New Guinea
- Australia
- Australian Anthropology
- Papua New Guinean Highlanders
- Papua New Guinea Highlands
- Australian Colony
- Western Tradition
- Papua New Guinean Independence
- Gary Kildea
- Anti-Racism
- Sync-Sound
- Dennis O'Rourke
- History of Cinema
- Film History
- History of Film
- Western Economy
- Western Economic System
- Western Political System
- Chris Owen
- West Sepig
- Development
- The Red Bowmen
- Black Harvest
- Land Use
- Urban Migrants
- Filmmaking Conventions
- Sepig River
- Cannibal Tours
- Ethnocentrism
- Hollywood
Credits
Coming Soon