The Highlands Trilogy: The Complete Collection

Tubuans & Dukduks has profiled a number of books about Papua New Guinea over the course of its short life. To find these posts simply click on the category cloud “PNG Literature” or you can click here.

But what about videos or documentaries focused on PNG? Well, you can’t get much better than the following three-in-one astonishing documentary series which was filmed over a ten year period in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

The series contains 3 DVD’s that include First Contact (1983), followed by Joe Leahy’s Neighbours (1989) and Black Harvest (1992) which have won 30 national and international awards, including an Academy Award nomination for First Contact.

All three won the Grand Prix at France’s prestigious Festival Cinéma du Réel and American Film Institute awards for Best Documentary.

In the 1930’s, the Leahy brothers encountered the hidden people of the highlands in the interior of New Guinea that was the first meeting of white and black. This documentary series features some extraordinary archival footage of both cultures and how this meeting between the two different cultures left one culture totally scarred.

The series finishes with Black Harvest which is a sad tale of despair and woe with the coffee plantation that was introduced into the highlands causing the downward spiral of the proud people of the highlands.

For a documentary that is 20 to 30 years old the video quality is quite exceptional.

~ by Tavurvur on January 20, 2009.