Bougainville Documentary Wins Top Film Festival Award
PAPE'ETE (Pacific Magazine/Tahiti Presse/Pacific Media Watch): Breaking Bows and Arrows, a 2002 documentary about
Bougainville, has won top honours at the third Annual International Oceania Documentary Film Festival in Papeete, French
Polynesia.
Australian director Liz Thompson's 52-minute documentary received the jury's Grand Prix during Saturday night's awards
ceremony at the Papeete Cultural Center, which hosted the four-day festival better known by its French acronym, FIFO
(French International du Film documentaire Océanien).
Thompson's film was produced by Ellenor Cox of Film Australia.
The documentary focuses on Bougainville, and how a broken community "turns to tradition to heal the rifts caused by a
decade of armed conflict. The 1998 ceasefire may have stopped neighbor killing neighbor, but the legacy remains.
"This powerful documentary examines the extraordinary human capacity to forgive and shows how the path to true
reconciliation begins with this forgiveness."
This year's festival presented 39 films for public viewing, with 20 films not competing for awards.
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