Film lecturer wins top award

A VICTORIA University film lecturer’s feature-length documentary about the Lak people of Papua New Guinea has won a top visual anthropology prize.
Dr Paul Wolffram is enjoying international recognition for his film Stori Tumbuna: Ancestors’ Tales, with the work receiving the Jean Rouch prize from the Society for Visual Anthropology in San Francisco, an award given for collaborative and participatory work.
The film is an ethnographic documentary produced from two years living with the Lak people in the remote southern New Ireland.
Wolffram’s film premiered in Wellington at the New Zealand International Film Festival in 2011 and was selected to screen at the Jean Rouch International Film Festival in Paris later that year.
Jean Rouch was a founder of visual anthropology and is widely known for his ethnographical films on African people.
Wolffram is due to travel to the US in November to receive the Jean Rouch prize. He will show and discuss his film at several American universities including Harvard in Boston.
Wolffram first went to PNG in 2001 to study music and dance as part of his PhD research. He has since made two more trips to where the Lak people live, an area with no permanent roads, no power or water supply and few public services.
In total, he has made three films about the Lak people – the first and third aimed at ethnographers and anthropologists and the second – Stori Tumbuna: Ancestors’ Tales – for a general audience.
“My goal is to give viewers an understanding of how the Lak people see the world. Rather than telling stories about them, it is a participatory journey where people can experience the traditional mythologies of the region,” he said.
“The Lak people are a self-sufficient community living in a rain forest. These films are one of the few opportunities they have had to present themselves to the world.”
Wolffram said receiving the Society for Visual Anthropology award was very special.
“It’s an honour to receive an award associated with Jean Rouch, one of the greatest ethnographers we have seen and was way ahead of his time.”
The film has secured a distributor who will sell the film in the education and academic markets in the US and Europe.
Wolffram has formed a lasting attachment to the Lak people – he has been given a clan name and a place in the community and made a commitment to return to their region at least every five years.
The Lak people would receive half of the royalties collected from the screenings. – Fairfax Media NZ