First Contact

Produced and directed by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson;
photography by Tony Wilson and Dennis O'Rourke;
edited by Stewart Young and Martyn Down;
distributed by Filmmakers Library.
Running time: 54 minutes.

Synopsis:

Chronicles some of the adventures of the Leahy brothers, three Australian adventurers who got to New Guinea looking for gold.  The Leahys eventually do find the gold they're searching for.  Along the way, however, they "discover" the existence of more than a million people in the New Guinea highlands who have had very little contact with the outside world.  The Leahys took both still and motion pictures of their travels.  The filmmakers use this archive as well as current day footage and interviews with the Leahys and the natives to tell the story.  The film won numerous awards after its 1983 release

Questions to consider:

1) What is the filmmakers' attitude toward the natives?

2) What is the filmmakers' attitude toward the Leahy brothers?

3) How do the natives interviewed recall the Leahy brothers?

4) How do the Leahy brothers recall the natives?

5) Did the Leahy brothers treat the natives fairly?  If not, what should they have done?

6) How is violence and coercion shown in the film?

7) Was the Leahy brothers use of violence and coercion appropriate?

8) Were there viable alternatives to the Leahys?

9) What is your reaction to the scene in which the natives watch pictures of themselves?

10) Dan Leahy says of the natives: "Nothing in their lives was better than what we brought them."  How do you think the filmmaker feels about that statement?  How do you feel about it?

 

More Background and Synopsis

Bob Connolly spent his formative years at the ABC (1964?78) as a foreign correspondent, current affairs reporter and documentary film-maker. In 1979, he left the ABC, along with Robin Anderson, his partner and co-director, to make films independently. Their debut film, First Contact (83), is a classic study of first culture contact in the New Guinea Highlands. The film won ten international awards, including a US Academy Award nomination. In 1985, after a two-year stint as Visiting Fellows at the ANU (their resulting book First Contact was published in New York by Viking), Connolly and Anderson returned to the Highlands and after three years of filming and editing released Joe Leahy's Neighbours (89) which won seven international awards. A further two years went into the 1992 sequel Black Harvest which won the pair another 13 awards. All three films enjoyed successful Australian theatrical releases and were sold to TV stations around the world; all three won the Grand Prix at the Festival Cinema du Reel in Paris and in Australia the AFI Award for Best Documentary. In 1992 the AFI awarded Connolly and Anderson the Byron Kennedy Award for their contribution to Australian film-making. Their 1996 film, Rats in the Ranks chronicles the power struggle surrounding a mayoral election in an inner-Sydney municipality. After its Sydney Film Festival premiere, the film enjoyed a highly successful five-month theatrical season in Australia. Philip Adams called it 'Our best insight into the political process'. The film's most recent award was the LOGIE for the Most Outstanding TV Documentary of 1997. Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson's most recent production is Facing the Music, which screened at this year's Sydney Film Festival.

First Contact: Academy Award Nominee, 1984

  • "It's a disturbing film, full of head-on challenges to colonial and racist attitudes. Yet it's a deeply human experience too." - Christian Science Monitor
  • "An astonishing record... which captures this clash of cultures with an un-selfconsciousness that is virtually absolute. 'First Contact' has a wistfulness and humor that accompany even its most startling revelation." - The New York Times
  • "The film is a phenomenon, evoking comparable enthusiastic reactions from anthropologists, judges in international film competitions, and packed audiences in Australian and American theaters." - American Anthropologist

This is the classic film of cultural confrontation that is as compelling today as when it was first released over ten years ago.

When Columbus and Cortez ventured into the New World there was no camera to record the drama of this first encounter. But, in 1930, when the Leahy brothers penetrated the interior of New Guinea in search of gold, they carried a movie camera. Thus they captured on film their unexpected confrontation with thousands of Stone Age people who had no concept of human life beyond their valleys. This amazing footage forms the basis of First Contact.

Yet there is more to this extraordinary film than the footage that was recovered. Fifty years later some of the participants are still alive and vividly recall their unique experience. The Papuans tell how they thought the white men were their ancestors, bleached by the sun and returned from the dead. They were amazed at the artifacts of 20th century life such as tin cans, phonographs and airplanes. When shown their younger, innocent selves in the found footage, they recall the darker side of their relationship with these mysterious beings with devastating weapons.

Australian Dan Leahy describes his fear at being outnumbered by primitive looking people with whom he could not speak. He felt he had to dominate them for his own survival and to continue his quest for gold.

First Contact is one of those rare films that holds an audience spell- bound. Humor and pathos are combined in this classic story of colonialism, told by the people who were there.

Grand Prix, Cinema du Reel, 1983
Red Ribbon, American Film Festival, 1983
Margaret Mead Film Festival, 1983
American Anthropological Association, 1984
Best in Sociology, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1983