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Non-fiction

Landing a whopper

by •
November 2005, no. 276

Making ‘Black Harvest’: Warfare, filmmaking and living dangerously in the highlands of Papua New Guinea by Bob Connolly

ABC Books, $32.95 pb, 303 pp

Non-fiction

Landing a whopper

by •
November 2005, no. 276

Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson – partners in life and work – made three documentaries in the Papua New Guinea Highlands: First Contact (1983), Joe Leahy’s Neighbours (1989) and Black Harvest (1992). These films have won several awards which is fitting, given that each exemplifies what is possible in the medium of observational filmmaking, where the drama evolving from real situations outdoes anything that could be imagined in a Hollywood studio. Of course, they were shrewd in their choice of subject. With its mixture of cultures and traditions, PNG offers plenty of conflict, the essential salt in the documentary pie. Anderson and Connolly had a special taste for salt – who else would have recognised local mayoral elections as a site of grand drama as they did for Rats in the Ranks (1996)?

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Sarah Kanowski

Sarah Kanowski is a writer, editor, and broadcaster. She is the new editor of Island magazine, the literary quarterly based in Tasmania and addressed to readers and writers across the world. Sarah has worked extensively at ABC Radio National, primarily on the Late Night Live, Saturday Extra, and Encounter programs. She holds a Masters of Philosophy in English Studies from Oxford University. Having begun life as a Queenslander, with time spent in Latin America, she wonders how much further south fate will carry her.

Sarah Kanowski reviews ‘Making ‘Black Harvest’: Warfare, filmmaking and living dangerously in the highlands of Papua New Guinea’ by Bob Connolly

Making ‘Black Harvest’: Warfare, filmmaking and living dangerously in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

by Bob Connolly

ABC Books, $32.95 pb, 303 pp

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