The Colonial Syndrome - Back to the Land

Описание: See the full educational multimedia documentary series at https://www.colonialsyndrome.org/

A sister project to the multi-award winning film Ophir.
https://www.ophir-film.com/.

Featuring Paramount Chief Peter Garuai.

First came the missionaries. Then the colonial powers. Then WWII. Then mining. Then revolution. Then civil war. ‘Our life was not normal anymore’, Pokpok Island Chief Peter Garuai observes. No permission was asked by the invading powers. No permission was granted. When recalling this history of colonial and corporate occupation, Peter Garuai notes the ‘strong opposition’ mounted by communities on Bougainville. Large-scale mining became the potent symbol of a much longer process of occupation and exploitation that was deaf to the will of those subjugated by civilizations that considered themselves superior. ‘They didn’t hear them, they didn’t listen to them’. Like the colonial powers that preceded it, Peter Garuai argues, Rio Tinto entered Bougainville without permission. When the women rose up as the custodians of land in a matrilineal system, the riot squads brutalised them. It was an existential struggle to save the land. ‘The land looks after us’, Chief Garuai observes, ‘and when we die, we go back to the land’. The struggle continues today. “The only people that are talking about the mine to reopen are the people that are centred around the ideology of the mine pit … this generation has to know they live on the land. They don’t live up on the sky, no”.

The Colonial Syndrome is a multimedia web-series about colonialism and revolution in the South Pacific island of Bougainville. A project by the University of Ulster, developed under the direction of Professor Kristian Lasslett and Dr Ruth Saovanna in association with the Bougainville Peoples Research Center and Arsam International.

Project Director: Professor Kristian Lasslett and Dr Ruth Saovanna
Texts, Film and Archive Curator: Professor Kristian Lasslett
Online Film Series Creator: Olivier Pollet
Film Editing: Charlotte Buisson-Tissot
Film Directors: Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet
Cinematography & Sound: Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet
Music: Xavier Thiry
Post-Production: Fourth World Films
Researchers: Dr Ruth Saovanna, Professor Kristian Lasslett, Theonila Roka-Matbob, Nathan Matbob, Clive Porabou, Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet.
With support from the Christensen Fund.