FILM AUSTRALIA COLLECTION

Opening titles. Waterfall in rainforest, village life, Indigenous peoples, children feeding animals, climbing Pawpaw? tree, collecting fruit, women carrying nets, children eating bananas.

Voice-over -17th December, 1920, Council of League of Nations confers on Commonwealth of Australia a mandate for the territory of New Guinea. Tilt down League of Nations building in Geneva. League of Nations assembly.

Tribe of Indigenous New Guinean people in traditional dress. Australian patrol officer talking with interpreter. CU of their faces showing elaborate bone adornments in their noses. Exchange of axes (implements), totems, painted wooden figures, tribes walking through jungle, aircraft ( Junkers Bulolo 1) landing, ships arriving into harbour, village schools and the growth of education, building, playing football, planting crops.

Australian recruitment of Indigenous labour for the economic development of New Guinea. Indentured labour has led to social and economic dislocation of the labourers, now the responsibility of the Australian Government. Recruitment officer assessing physical condition of the people. Woman and children. Labourers sawing timber, clearing land for copra, coffee and rubber plantations. Loading boats, labouring in mines, building bridges, mining gold, working on plane maintenance, CU of biplane in take off. Aerials over river and jungle.

Papuan New Guineans serving with the Allies during World War Two as carriers & stretcher bearers. Explosions in distance, Japanese pilot flying bomber planes, bombs being dropped, explosions, VS of indigenous people of New Guinea watching the skies, handing guns to native men, New Guinea soldiers marching on patrol in jungles and overlaid with medals, WS of war cemetery with many small white crosses. CU on crosses for Pte Lapu and Pte Moroguwai.

Prison ship, Montevideo Maru sunk in 1942. Submarine rising out of water and releasing torpedo. Explosion. Newspaper article about 80 New Guinea Administration Officers lost when prison ship torpedoed. Sign for District Office, Angau in Lae. Australian and New Guinea Administration Unit (ANGAN) officers working with indigenous people. Large group of indigenous people walking through jungle paths, washing hanging outside village huts, scenes of rebuilding after war, weaving mats, moulding pots, chiselling boats and canoes.

Australian and New Guinea Administration Unit (ANGAN) as part of the rebuilding of Papua New Guinea. Sign - Government Offices Departments. Indigenous man working on jeep with sign, Civil Administration Papua New Guinea. Two indigenous men in white shirts typing, others with headphones answering telephones at a switchboard, one man using a microscope, sending Morse Code, climbing power pole, wearing face masks and giving medical service, loading ships at wharf, aerial of reconstructed village, meeting of native councillors discussing new laws . Sunset.