Look out for Nana

The National Weekender
FILM
Tribal Voice Art Link working on 45-minute short film on sorcery accusation-related violence and child protection funded by the South Pacific Commission
A promotional banner of the film featuring an awareness on child protection. Pictures by Tribal Voice Art Link

By ALPHONSE BARIASI
IN all-too-common family tale, a man working in the city leaves his wife and their two children for another woman.
The abandoned family retreats to the village and lives with an uncle of the mother. Sometime later someone in the village dies and the widow is accused for causing the death through sorcery. The villagers turn on her and kill her.
Aged 11 and seven, the children fend for themselves as best they can with the help of the extended family. But some time later, the older male child decides to take his sister to the city in search of their father.
Locating their father turns out to be not as simple as they had hoped so they join other abandoned children living off alms from the odd sympathetic city resident and whatever else they can scavenge.
Sounds achingly real except that it is the story line of an awareness and educational film now in the works.
From the producers of the 2014 television drama Grace will be another of the same genre of entertaining with an educational theme or a very relatable story. It will be a 45-minute short film titled Nana.
Starring university student (then) Tina Wesley the film was about a highlands girl raised in a village and moving to Port Moresby in pursuit of an education and her personal dream to become a lawyer. Those dreams were to be shaped by social, cultural and economic challenges – a common thread running in the lives of a lot of present-day Papua New Guinean families.
The 10 episodes were set in and around Port Moresby and Kundiawa, following the life of the young girl, and exploring issues affecting PNG’s development including family and sexual violence.
Tribal Voice Arts Link produced the series with a crew and cast of Papua New Guineans. It was funded by the Australian Government through the Strongim Pipol Strongim Nesen programme, in partnership with the National Cultural Commission.
Producer McPolly Koima and his Tribal Voice Arts Link are now working on their next major undertaking featuring the lives of two children estranged from their father after the passing of their mum.
This time, for Nana, funding is from the African, Caribbean and Pacific-European Union (ACP-EU) partnership through the South Pacific Commission. Koima recently signed papers for the release of the grant to start work on the film.
Koima was the only successful applicant from PNG to have secured funding for his production. He says getting government funding for film production and other artistic endeavours is difficult even though some of the proposed works are aimed at promoting and advocating government development agenda, such as his current project.
“Nana is the story of two abandoned kids, aged between five and seven, and 10-11 years old. The mother is a murdered through sorcery accusation-related violence and the father remarries,” Koima explains the plot.
“Growing up in the village the children are left fending for themselves; the older boy taking care of his sister. They travel into Port Moresby in search of their father. They meet other children similarly abandoned by parents or orphaned and living off the streets of Port Moresby. Eventually they find their father who breaks down and embraces them.”
The film will be shot in Port Moresby and a Central village, and will take at least six months to complete.
It will be shot in a series of 10 episodes to tell the whole story on social issues. Unfortunately, with limited donor funding and in trying to meet their requirements or expectations as well, some aspects of the PNG story would be lost, the producer thinks.
“Funding and the time frame would not permit the whole story to be told as we would want to.”
Koima says this film is an important medium to educate the public; it is aimed at advocating national child protection legislation, the Lukautim Pikinini Act.

We need to teach using media such radio and film to produce good quality content for educational purposes
The film director talking to some of the disadvantaged children at their location in Port Moresby.

Apart from directing and producing Koima has also acted overseas. He was a member of the cast of the German biopic Dschungelkind (Jungle Child) based on the story of German girl Sabine Kuegler growing up in West Papua, Indonesia, among the Fayu tribe. Her parents we missionaries there.
A cast of 85 Papua New Guineans were flown to Malaysia, where the film was shot.
Koima and the youngest member of the PNG cast Emmanuel Simeon were invited to the launching of Jungle Child in Berlin.
“When I returned from international film events I asked the PNG Government for funding. I also asked the Australian Government through the Stronglim Pipol Strongim Nesen programme and in 2013, with their support I produced the feature film called Grace.
Filming is expensive, Koima says. Grace cost a half million kina to make and that was with working on a tight budget filming at two different locations.
“After Grace, I applied for a funding from the ACP-EU grant to the South Pacific Commission to produce Nana aimed at addressing PNG Government legislation and policy on child protection.
“The ACP-EU process is a quite stringent but they trusted me because of my experience with Grace and my international exposure through working on the set for the Jungle Child.”
Koima says through the medium of film and stage productions, he wants to do his bit in educating and motivating the youth population especially who are the most vulnerable in socio-economic crises facing the country.
“We need to teach using media such radio and film to produce good quality content for educational purposes,” he says.
The 50-year-old from Kerowagi in Chimbu graduated with a degree in theatre arts and taught at Sogeri National High School for three years. He also worked with Telikom PNG, the Office of Rural Development and EMTV television station.

Chief Boku 
In 2010 the German film production company UFA Cinemas was looking for a PNG cast for the film called Jungle Child.
After three to four producers were tried, Matthias Uldler was selected. He took four years to seek funding, which is a universal challenge in film production. When the film couldn’t be shot on location, the next best stop was Papua New Guinea.
For logistical reasons, the cast selected, which was a whole tribe consisting 85 individuals, were flown to Malaysia. Koima was cast as Chief Boku of the Fayu tribe.
Auditions were held in Port Moresby, Lae, Goroka, Madang and Wewak. Koima was selected from among several hundred others who had auditioned for the role of the Fayu chief Boku in the film.
The cast had to learn the Trobriand Island language of Milne Bay because it was a lot easier to learn mainly because of its dual-syllabic structure. To make the cut, Koima had to lose 4kg. Running three times daily from Gerehu to Waigani he shed 3kg and for the remaining kilo he would run through a huge oil palm plantation in Malaysia and get saved by a tractor driver after getting lost in the process.
In the final audition, he had lost 5kg.
The set for the shooting had been prepared eight months in advance by a German crew with assistance from locals. There were 100 German crew and cast and another 100-member local crew.
Jungle Child was completed in three months and for the launch five Papua New Guinean cast members and officials including Koima and, Emmanuel Simeon were invited to the launching in Central Berlin’s biggest cinema.

  • We will introduce the cast and talk about the progress in the production of Nana in a future article .