First Contact
Race & Equality • 51m
When Columbus and Cortez ventured into the New World, there was no technology to record the drama of this first encounter. But, in 1930, when the Leahy brothers penetrated the interior of Papua New Guinea in search of gold, they carried a movie camera. Thus, they captured on film their unexpected confrontation with indigenous communities. This amazing footage is at the center First Contact. Fifty years later some of the participants are still alive and vividly recall their first encounter with the outsiders. The Papuans recount how they believed the white men to be their ancestors, bleached by the sun and returned from the dead. When shown their younger, innocent selves in the found footage, they recall the darker side of their relationship with these mysterious beings.
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