Sukundimi Walks Before Me
In 2016, a global mining company submitted a plan to the Papua New Guinea government to build a massive mine near the Sepik's waters. The scheme has the potential to pollute this biodiversity hotspot, destroying the environment, livelihood and wellbeing of the Sepik people. Emmanuel (Manu) Peni leads his community in a grassroots resistence, invoking Indigenous and ancestral knowledge against the forces of colonial bureaucracy and Western development. In following the campaign, the filmmakers, Matasila Freshwater (Vai, SFF 2019) and Lachlan McLeod, explore the Sepik people's spiritual connection to their natural world. As Manu explains, "the living river, this is our identity, it is us, it runs inside me".
Special Guests
Lachlan McLeod is an award-winning director and editor, a big-picture thinker whose work is guided by an intuitive sense of story, and the trust and respect he builds with his subjects. His most recent feature documentary CLEAN, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW and selected as the Closing Night film at the 70th Melbourne International Film Festival. Some of Lachlan’s earlier works include BIG IN JAPAN (2018) and CONVENIENT EDUCATION (SBS, 2012). Lachlan is currently developing a feature documentary about Australia’s largest all-abilities choir, Warrnambool’s FIND YOUR VOICE collective.
Matasila is an award-winning writer/director, who holds an MA in Scriptwriting from Victoria University IIML. Her work, which explores cultural complexities, womanhood, weirdoes and death, has featured in many international festivals, including Berlinale, SXSW and Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival. She was responsible for the Solomon Islands section of the award-winning feature, VAI (2019) and her latest short film HIAMA (2021) received the Sun Jury Prize at Imaginenative.
Tickets
Sydney Film Festival acknowledges Australia’s First Nations People as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land, and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose Country SFF is based.
We honour the storytelling and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.
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