First Contact (1983)

Directed by

Bob Connolly

Genre

documentary film

Country

Australia

Runtime

58 min

Rating

7.1 of 10 from 7 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary tells the story of Australian gold prospectors who encountered a million indigenous people in the New Guinea highlands in 1930. It uses old footage and interviews with both the settlers and the native inhabitants to show their shock and awe at this first meeting.

historiccontemplativerevelatoryunsettlingawe-inspiringreflectivearchivalsobering

What happens

First Contact is a 1983 Australian documentary film by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson which recounts the incursion of gold-prospecting Australians into the unexplored interior highlands of New Guinea in 1930, then inhabited by a prosperous native population numbering in the region of one million. It is based on the book of the same name by the same authors. Inhabitants of the region and surviving members of the Leahy brothers' gold prospecting party recount their astonishment at this unforeseen meeting. The film includes both moving and still pictures taken by Michael Leahy, leader of the party, and contemporary footage of the island's terrain. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It won Best Feature Documentary at the 1983 Australian Film Institute Awards. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Lousy Little Sixpence (1983)
• For Love or Money (1983)
• New Guinea Patrol (1958)
• We Stop Here (1978)
• The Land That Waited (1963)
• The Secret Country: The First Australians Fight Back (1985)
• District Commissioner (1963)
• The City's Edge (1983)