TakeCareOfOurCulture

This channel features videos shot during the Balopa Cultural Festival held at Baluan Island, Manus Province, Papua New Guinea in Christmas 2006.

The purpose of this enormous festival - the largest in the history of the island - was to revive old cultural traditions, get the bored youth involved in meaningful activities and thereby possibly attract international tourism and money to the island.

The videos are part of a larger anthropological film project which deals with the ways Baluan people understand themselves, their culture and their possibilities in the new global reality. Apart from the extraordinary cultural performances the film focuses on several local debates, which evolved during the festival about what Baluan culture and tradition actually consists of and what it may and may not be used for.

The videos are made in a collaboration between Ton Otto, Christian Suhr Nielsen and Steffen Dalsgaard who are based at the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University.

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