The PNG filmmaker taking on the world

People MR MOVIES

THE PNG FILMMAKER TAKING ON THE WORLD

BY RUBY GAMOGA | PHOTOGRAPHS: SUPPLIED

Switching careers in the middle of your medical residency may not be the most ideal time to change your mind, but that is precisely what Papua New Guinean filmmaker Spenser Wangare did.

“It wasn’t my passion,” Wangare says of his medical residency. “I wasn’t interested in working in a hospital.”

Wangare’s first short film, though, had a medical theme. The film, Epidemic, is about the lifestyle causes of diabetes.

“It screened at the PNG Human Rights Festival countrywide in 2016,” says Wangare. “Studying medicine showed me the impact of lifestyle diseases and in my film I wanted to address this indirectly. To influence people indirectly.”

Wangare, from Kolobi village in Enga Province, has been on a remarkable film journey since then. Projects he has worked on have been streamed on Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and one of his latest collaborations, Deep Rising, which explores the environmental and cultural consequences of a controversial deep-sea mine proposed by Canadian company Nautilus Minerals, will premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. “We just got the acceptance letter,” Wangare says.

His journey has been even more remarkable because the film industry is struggling to get off the ground in PNG, even though it’s just been granted the ability to submit films for consideration at the Academy Awards (see our story on Page 21).

While things might be looking up for Wangare, they haven’t always been that way. “Until the last two years, I never made much money from filmmaking,” he says. “It took me seven to eight years to get to where I am. The number one issue has been funding. For first timers wanting to get funding in the industry, it is very complicated. But after you make yourself known, it can get a bit easier.”

Left: Spenser Wangare directing a cameraman on the set of his latest movie, Black Python. Above: Spenser Wangare, who switched careers from medicine to film. Below: At work on the film Wara, a story about grief and loss, shot on Duke of York Island in East New Britain Province.

Wangare says he has survived almost a decade in the industry by helping people produce media materials.

“The people I helped, helped me,” Wangare says. “I didn’t ask for money, especially when starting out. The more I helped others, the more I learnt and the more of an expert I became. All the things I needed such as a computer and good equipment just came towards me.”

Wangare received gear worth K40,000 from Tim Wolff, an acclaimed American documentarian with whom he made I’m Moshanty: Do You Love Me? It is a riveting US-funded feature about South Pacific musical star Moses Tau and her experience as the public face of transgender people in PNG.

Having Wolff as a contact was also strategic for distribution: Wolffe helped Wangare land a contract with US streaming service Hulu for his upcoming film about martial arts called Black Python.

Black Python is a superhero film, the “PNG equivalent of Avengers,” says Wangare. Among its cast is the country’s leading actor, David Kaumara, who starred in Jungle Child, a 2011 German drama about a linguist’s true encounter with a PNG tribe in the 1980s, and in Mr Pip, alongside three-time Golden Globe winner Hugh Laurie.

Black Python is being released in June. Also in the pipeline are its sequel, Black Python 2, Time with Xi, a series about China’s growing influence globally, which will soon air on the Discovery Channel, and Lukim Yu 2, the second instalment in the franchise about young Papua New Guineans finding their footing in a modern world.

In the first Lukim Yu, Wangare assisted Canadian producer and director Christopher Anderson as an actor and cameraman, but for the second film he will be executive producer. “We might begin filming next year,” he says.

Anderson says: “Spenser shows tremendous drive and passion. He’s one of those guys who, when I met him, I knew right away he’d be successful. Making films in PNG is incredibly difficult but he doesn’t let obstacles hold him back. He gets over the finish line. His passion is infectious and he bugs me regularly to see where things are up to with Lukim Yu 2.”

When I ask Wangare why he bases many of his films on social issues, he says it has to do with where he comes from.

“Where I come from, there are warring clans. So, in movies, I can address this, make people think and hopefully they get the message. I also want to preserve our culture and history because, who knows, after 20 years, the film will still be there but the culture might not.”

Behind the scenes on the set of Wara.

SPENSER WANGARE’S FAVOURITE FILMS

PNG Tin Pis (1991) One of the earliest films 01 produced in PNG. Tukana (1984) Features Albert Toro, one of 02 PNG’s leading actors. Lukim Yu (2016) Addresses the cultural clash 03 of characters growing up in Port Moresby. Grace (2014) The movie version of the 04 10-episode TV series about the experiences of PNG women who want to pursue their dreams. Mr Pip (2012) By a New Zealand filmmaker 05 but delves into the Bougainville Crisis.

INTERNATIONAL Avatar01 (2009) Lord of the Rings trilogy02 (2001–2003) Ivan’s Childhood03 (1962) Badlands04 (1973)

An Autumn Afternoon05 (1962)