PNG documentaries challenge stereotypes

Transcript

The Australian High Commission to Papua New Guinea says a series of documentary films it commissioned about women leaders in the country breaks new ground.

The series of six films, under the Pawa Meri project,  features the stories of six women from a diverse range of backgrounds including education, politics, business and peace and rehabilitation.

Australia's High Commissioner to PNG, Deborah Stokes, told Amelia Langford the films were developed in partnership with the University of Goroka and Australia's Victoria University.

DEBORAH STOKES: We did this project to demonstrate that there are fantastic women leaders in Papua New Guinea, working in all sorts of ways. People who are well educated, and those who are not well educated at all but despite that playing a real leadership role in their communities. They're a very powerful set of films, and we're hoping to promote them very widely throughout Papua New Guinea to demonstrate to women and also to men the roles that women can play and indeed are playing in Papua New Guinea.

AMELIA LANGFORD: Is part of the aim to empower women and challenge those stereotypes that might exist?

DS: Absolutely, and there are as there are in all countries, stereotypes about women and I think in PNG lots of people recognise that women face some particular challenges here and to see these films, something I highly recommend to listeners, I was absolutely struck by the determination of the women in these films, and they were going to surmount whatever obstacles were in their way. So it had a very clear-eyed vision of where they were going and I think for anyone watching these movies you could not fail to be impressed and I think would be impressive for all Papua New Guineans, not just women actually, to see that if you want to improve your lives or improve the lives of your community, you can do it, you can do it. And these films show that there are some women here who have probably virtually no education who have been real drivers and in one case the film about a woman from Daru which is in Western Province. The film is called "Never Give Up" and she was determined to build a health clinic for maternal health, and she was I think devastated by the difficulties that pregnant women were facing in her remote village and we saw how she mobilised the community to raise money and to write the proposal and to seek money and to continue to lobby to get support for this project, and she was absolutely driven.

AL: I'm imagining that it's actually quite unusual for women directors to be making films about women in PNG, would I be right?

DS: I think that's absolutely right. In fact I don't know that there's been too many films about women in the past, if any and the fact that through this project we have been able to mobilise this excellent partnership between the University of Goroka and the Centre for Social and Creative Media and the University of Victoria in Australia. And that project has really been a catalyst I think for breaking new territory in the film industry and also for women in Papua New Guinea.