PNG film to premiere at Melbourne film festival

A PAPUA New Guinean film titled, ‘Sukundimi Walks Before Me’, has been selected to make its Melbourne premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia this August. 

This powerful documentary won the Sustainable Future Award at this year’s Sydney Film Festival - the biggest environmental film prize in the world.

The film features the mighty Sepik River, the Amazon of the Pacific, and the fight to preserve it from a colossal copper and gold mine. The screenings of the film are expected in Melbourne at 4pm, Fri, Aug 7 at ACMI 1 and at 6.15pm, Sat, Aug 8 at Kino 2. Get tickets here: https://lnkd.in/ggRQJky8.Produced in partnership with Project Sepik, Walking Fish, Brown Sugar Apple Grunt Productions, Save The Sepik, the film centres the mighty Sepik River- the lifeblood of its people - and documents Sepik communities’ resistance to the proposed gold-copper mine located near the river’s waters. Sukundimi Walks Before Me made its Papua New Guinea premiere at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) in Port Moresby on April 24, 2026, and screened at the Moresby Arts Theatre on April 26, 2026. The landmark documentary won the Sustainable Future Award at the 2026 Sydney Film Festival and focuses on the Sepik River communities fighting the Frieda River mine.

It explores this existential fight through lyrical expressions of existence, resistance and life along the mother river.

It represents a significant moment in Pacific cinema: a feature documentary shaped in deep collaboration with Sepik communities and championed by Melanesian storytellers, foregrounding cultural authority, long-term relationship, and accountability to place.

Produced in partnership with Project Sepik and the Save the Sepik campaign, Sukundimi Walks Before Me centres the mighty Sepik River — the lifeblood of its people — and documents Sepik communities’ resistance to the proposed gold-copper mine located near the river’s waters. At its heart, the film is a story of guardianship, ancestral responsibility, and collective refusal in the face of extraction.

It’s an incredible film. Decolonisation, environmental protection, heritage, identity - this is one to watch. 

A scene from the film