In 1969, aged 10, I was living on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea when the United Nations Act of Free Choice took place in West Papua (then called West Irian). At the time, I knew little of the event but then the refugees began arriving to be resettled near Lorengau, our local town.
We used to drive past the refugee compound and watch the workers erect cyclone fencing. These refugees were not village people - many of them wore shirts, ties, trousers and spoke good English. The memory of that camp made me want to know more about the history of West Papua and its people. Little did I know that some of the people behind that cyclone fence would later become good friends and help me make this film about their history.
After graduating from Swinburne Film and Television School in 1984, I began making documentaries in the Asia Pacific region with an emphasis on my birthplace, Papua New Guinea. By the early 1990s I had travelled all over PNG and wanted to see what the western half of the island of New Guinea was like. I knew the history of West Papua from my research and had heard from travellers that it was very different from PNG, but when I first travelled there in 1994 I was shocked and excited.
In contrast to PNG, West Papua's capital city Jayapura had law and order, a strong police presence, and even concrete policemen on street corners. You could walk around at night feeling safe, the shops were open and the streets were alive with night markets selling exotic food, vegetables, smoked fish, clove cigarettes, toys and clothes. Later I travelled up to Wamena in the snow-clad mountains and was amazed by the sight of naked Dani men walking around town wearing penis gourds, their hands proudly folded across their chests.
Since that first trip I have visited West Papua 14 times - filming and reporting stories for Channel 4 in the UK, SBS TV, ABC Radio and The Australian newspaper. During that time I discovered I was the only filmmaker reporting from the region who had a first-hand grasp of the country's history. I desperately wanted to make a film on West Papua. It seemed important to tell this great story taking place on Australia's "doorstep".
In 1996 I made a one-hour radio documentary for ABC's Hindsight program on the history of West Papua titled "The Mountain Is My Mother", which was re-broadcast on the eve of the elections in East Timor in August 1999. I received good feedback from the ABC who said that a former Film Australia colleague, Janet Bell, had rung to congratulate me.
I kept writing and pursuing the idea of a documentary as I kept filming and reporting extraordinary events that were happening in West Papua. In the year 2000 the reformist Indonesian President Wahid renamed the country "Papua" and made funds available to hold a congress to discuss the future of IndonesiaÕs 26th province.
It was at the Papuan Congress in May 2000 that I met Clemens Runaweri and decided to make a film with him. Clemens was a former West Papuan politician who had been living in exile in Papua New Guinea for 30 years. During the Act of Free Choice, Clemens was active as a politician and had demonstrated against Indonesia's occupation of his country. He had escaped into PNG where he was imprisoned on Manus Island by Australian authorities. Clemens was now back in his homeland participating in the Congress, seeing old friends and enemies. I decided to film him and his impressions of the country he called home. Together we revisited old parts of the Dutch capital (Hollandia) and he remarked on how the place had changed from a neat colonial township to a bustling Asian city.
On my return to Australia, I began work with Janet Bell as a producer on a historical documentary on West Papua to be produced under Film Australia's National Interest Program. The project gathered an ominous gravity when Chief Theys Eluay, who had been voted President of the Congress Presidium, was found murdered by Indonesian Kopassus soldiers. I began writing the script in the PNG border town of Vanimo over Christmas, and then returned to Australia in February for a research trip around NSW and Queensland with Janet Bell, interviewing subjects for the film.
The first draft of the script was completed with the help of Janet and script editor Ian David (Blue Murder) in May 2002. In July I went to West Papua and returned to Sydney only to be hospitalised with dengue fever.
The production commenced in October 2002, with cinematographer Phillip Bull and sound recordist Grant Roberts for our shoot in Sydney, Brisbane, Port Moresby and Vanimo in PNG. We then travelled to the PNG-Indonesian border with Clemens Runaweri and shot sequences of Clemens reminiscing about his life and his motherland. Fresh advice from Ian David and distinguished documentary maker Bob Connolly came our way and we finished the film in June.
As I have often worked as a "one-man-band reporter", this film is important to me because it was a truly collaborative effort. It was a great experience to work at Film Australia with the finest practitioners of the documentary craft, including the production staff who gave their all to see the film realised to its highest potential.
Mark Worth
Writer/director
(1958-2004)
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