'Ophir', the story of a nation in dispute

The song of the birds and the melodies of the children merge with the image of a man, the leader of the community, who draws golden lines on the face of an indigenous woman.

In the background, a voice is heard: “In the South Pacific are the Ophir Islands, which today are called Bougainville.

Once someone came from somewhere and undermined the morale of men and the earth, many called it the crisis.

With this first scene, British journalists and researchers Olivier Pollet and Alexandre Berman connect the history of the struggle for independence and sovereignty of what could be the newest nation in the world: Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea.

The region, colonized in 1885 by Germany and which after the Second World War passed into the hands of Australia, has disputed its emancipation since 1975. The struggle,

that turned into a civil war between the Revolutionary Army –which demanded the end of mining activities in the area– and the Government, culminated ten years later, after the signing of a peace agreement that contemplated a non-binding referendum to establish its independence.

Held in 2019 and with 97.7% of votes in favor of autonomy, the Papuan parliament agreed, two years later, that Bougainville will obtain its independence in 2027.

The feature film premiered on October 7, at the Another Way Film Festival, which runs from the 5th to the 11th of this month.

The projection is carried out through its digital platform and Filmin.

puts into perspective the impact of large-scale mining and the consequences of colonialism as the triggers of that decade of dispute, which the original inhabitants of the island called "the crisis."

The ability to thread the ancestral, aboriginal and indigenous, with the assimilation of the new culture imposed through weapons, has allowed its filmmakers to define

as a "poetic work".

The documentary, released in 2021, has positioned itself as the winner at 28 international film festivals.

Olivier Pollet, co-director, explains the importance of publicizing the battle of its inhabitants to defend the island's natural resources.

"Bougainville has proven to be one of the most difficult targets to conquer, which is why we wanted to make a film about its colonial system and the right to memory," he reflects.

“From these lands came the gold to build the temple of King Solomon.

Here everyone comes to have a drink and go

Told by the voices of the communities, the directors explain the importance of reviewing the origins of the conflict and clarify that they decided to recover the oral memory of these people.

"His story was not written anywhere," Pollet clarifies.

The documentary manages to tell itself from the testimonies of more than a hundred people from the most remote villages of Bougainville, the official name of the island after colonization.

“We didn't want to make a common story.

We decided to tell it from the voice of the people of the communities, from their songs, their rituals, traditions and their languages”, explains the documentary filmmaker, to refer to the more than 830 languages ​​and more than 1,000 ethnic groups that this territory has, according to the United Nations Unrepresented Organization (UNN).

"Before the arrival of the white man, we were called Ophir," says former Bougainville Revolutionary Army combatant Jonás Matevai, who carries a .22-caliber rifle in his hands.

“From these lands came the gold to build the temple of King Solomon.

Here everyone comes to have a drink and leave”.

The scene breaks between the images of the sea, of ritual ceramics, of the mountain.

“We wanted to talk about our rights and they told us that we had to do it with weapons.

Well, here we are: with the weapons of the white man”, he sentences.

“The Bouganville daughter was diagnosed.

She was full of copper and gold.

Skilled as a gynecologist operating on a pregnant woman, they extracted the baby.

She was born a mine of the first order”.

The starting point of the story begins in 1960, when the Anglo-Australian mining company Conzinc Río Tinto of Australia found large gold and copper mines in the bowels of the Crown Prince Mountain Range, on which various ethnic groups of the island settled.

"The international company, with the protection of the riot squad and the armed forces of the colony, led the massive extraction and export of minerals," reports one of the articles on the educational platform

created by the same filmmakers as Ophir.

"You mined my land as if removing my intestines," says the chief of the Taruito ethnic group to refer to Panguna.

The mountain –with estimated reserves of 5.3 million metric tons of copper and just over 500 thousand kilograms of gold– became the main point of interest for mining companies and governments in power.

"To extract our land they will have to kill us," threatens one of the interviewees.

His statement shows his bond with nature.

The decade of conflict between the mining company and the population claimed the lives of 20,000 people, although, according to the United Nations Organization, the figure is 15,000 dead during the conflict.

The environmental destruction left by the mine at the junction of the Jaba and Kawerong rivers in central Bougainville.Courtesy of Ophir film

In an hour and a half of duration, both directors have managed to concentrate seven years of investigation and production, two of them destined to review “confidential” documentation of the Río Tinto Company.

One of these reports, perhaps the most important within the structure of audiovisual narration, is that of the Harvard University anthropologist, Douglas Oliver.

Hired by the mining company to analyze the behavior of the indigenous ethnic groups, the researcher gives a vision of the relationship of the ethnic groups with nature, with their lands and their link with the white man.

"This is an explosive document for many people who work in ecology because it shows that it can also be used as a weapon of war"

reflects the journalist Olivier Pollet.

The information, explains the documentary filmmaker, came into his hands once the court case against the Anglo-Australian mining company began for the environmental damage caused in the area.

But his link with the indigenous communities of Bougainville began even before

.

The recording and subsequent screening of his first feature film entitled

about the exploitation of fishing resources by multinationals, opened the doors to one of the island's constant questions: how to build the independence of what could be the newest country of the world?

The 'Ophir' film crew in Panguna Mountain, Papua New Guinea, one of the areas most affected by mining.Courtesy of Ophir Film

The support of young people concerned about extractivism allowed Pollet and his team to connect with the daily life of the villages and communities and obtain the protection of the revolutionary leaders of Bougainville.

For the documentary filmmaker, the history of the war and the exploitation of the land has aroused a climate of constant suspicion in the people.

"I think we would never have been able to make the film if we were Australians."

And clear: “in reality, it is not a rejection of whites, but especially white Australians.”

Despite the fact that the Bougainville War is the largest armed conflict since the Second World War, Pollet emphasizes that very little is known about the echo of the colonization and struggle for the independence of these lands.

For this reason, this investigative journalist and his team have decided to create the aforementioned platform

.

Here they have dumped the audiovisual and archive material collected during almost a decade of work: more than 30 short films and other documents.

“The objective is that people who have no idea what happened can access a space for reflection.

Behind it there were not only environmental crimes, this was a war that was waged against people”, he comments.

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