A devastating copper-gold mine is proposed to be built near one of the last remaining great rivers; the children of the Sepik embark on an indigenous-led resistance to protect her waters. Sukundimi Walks Before Me, explores this existential fight through lyrical expressions of existence, resistance and life along the mother river.

Emerging from the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea, the forthcoming film Sukundimi Walks Before Me 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.

Time: 2pm, Saturday 13 June 2026

Venue: Dendy Newtown

The Sepik River is the mother line for Papua New Guinea communities. Winding through mountains and rainforests, she is the crucial vertebrae connecting and supporting the region’s rare biodiversity and spiritual consciousness. But her livelihood and her communities are threatened by the proposal of a copper-gold mine being built near her waters, which could extract, erode and pollute an environment that she has sustained for millennia.

The children of this river, led by Manu Peni, create a grassroots campaign to stop the mine from being built, resisting the forces of colonial bureaucracy and Western narratives of ‘development’ by invoking the Spirit of the river and indigenous knowledge.
Sukundimi Walks Before Me, explores this existential fight through lyrical expressions of existence, resistance and life along the mother river.

Synopsis Written by Matasila Freshwater

The Sepik is one of the world’s great cultural and ecological arteries — long revered, and frequently targeted. While its art and stories have travelled the world, Sepik people have too often been spoken about rather than centred as authors of their own narratives. This film works against that history. It is grounded in community trust, cultural authority, and a commitment to storytelling that is relational rather than extractive.

With its world premiere at the prestigious International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival (FIFO) in Tahiti in February 2026, Sukundimi Walks Before Me sits within a growing Pacific and Indigenous cinematic movement, one that prioritises sovereignty of story, community-led process, and the right to speak for land and future on one’s own terms.

Sukundimi Walks Before Me is produced by Brown Sugar Apple Grunt and Walking Fish Productions , and presented by Screen Australia in association with Pacific Islanders in Communication, Doc Society Climate Story Fund, The Post Lounge and VicScreen, with support from Shark Island Foundation, Three Springs Foundation, RNZ, and Random Good.

Directors: Matasila Freshwater and Lachlan Mcleod

Writers: Matasila Freshwater and Nick Fenton

Producers: David Elliot-Jones, Maria Tanner, Kerry Warkia, Emmanuel Peni & Lachlan Mcleod

Executive Producers: Kiel McNaughton and Chris Kamen

Cinematographers: Benjamin Bryan and Fraser Johnston

Editor: Nick Fenton