“Pig Feast: Colonialism in our time" is a documentary that paints a vivid picture of Papua and its Indigenous Peoples, artificially separated by colonialism and suffering from its oppression until today. It highlights the indigenous resistance against the large-scale destructive projects, in particular the National Strategic Project Merauke, with 2.5 million hectares currently the world´s largest deforestation, including oil palm and sugar cane monocultures for biodiesel and ethanol production. The documentary shows how the ongoing land grabbing is destroying the livelihoods and territories of Indigenous Peoples. It exposes how a few rich families and companies, with full support of the Indonesian government and military, are profiting from this destruction. The symbol of resistance are 1,800 red crosses which Indigenous Peoples in Papua erected in and around their territories over the past 10 years. As one Indigenous man explains: “We believe that if we are unable to resolve a problem, in this case preventing a company from entering our land, we ask for help from our ancestors and God. On the crosses, we inscribed or drew the attributes of war that are meant to show that we strictly prohibit anyone from entering or disturbing our territory. If anyone breaches these signs, or threatens our ancestral land rights, we are prepared to fight a war.” The film is having a tremendous impact inside Indonesia, so much so that government authorities have halted or suppressed more than 10 film screenings. To ensure the documentary remains available, the film makers and producers have put the documentary on Youtube. The full documentary in English can be accessed here and in Bahasa Indonesia here. See also this article in English about the film.
The documentary “Pig Feast: Colonialism in our time" presents a vivid picture of the struggle of Indigenous Peoples across the island of Papua against destruction of their territories. The film highlights indigenous resistance against large-scale projects that destroy peoples’ life spaces. One such project is the National Strategic Project Merauke, with 2.5 million hectares currently the world´s largest deforestation Project.