YUMI YET

"An exuberant celebration - the world acclaimed portrait of Papua New Guinea at the time of the nation's independence festivities... An extraordinarily beautiful film... not to be missed." - Time Out, London

directed and produced by Dennis O'Rourke
photography - Richard Marks, Alan Shepherd, Dennis O'Rourke
editing - Tom Foley

54 minutes 16mm/video Rated G 1976

"The seamless inevitibility of O'Rourke's finest work takes the art of the documentary to a very high level. What's remarkable is his skill at letting his films unfold casually, piece by piece, so that they tell a story without the tiresome intervention of a narrator or even the appearance of telling a story. O'Rourke uses music, voices, radio broadcasts and found imagery to fashion a witty, politically hip portrait of Independence Day in Papua New Guinea, a culture that has gone from head-hunting to democracy in less than a century."

- John Powers, LA Weekly

"Dennis O'Rourke's brilliant study of Papua New Guinea's independence celebrations does not belong to the tradition in which an all-knowing, anonymously honeyed voice lulls us with loaded instructions for interpreting a world which it empties of interest.

Skilful and humorous editing of the vividly beautiful images and the superb soundtracks of voices, music and radio broadcasts brings out a sense of wonder at a society composed of extraordinary juxtapositions.

It is not just that traditional tribal customs co-exist with both the paraphernalia of British and Australian colonialism and the new institutions for independence. Each element actively transforms the others and gives them new meaning."

- Meaghan Morris, Sydney Morning Herald

"An extraordinarily beautiful film ... O'Rourke has constructed, through skilful editing of sound and image, a picture of a society clutched by Australian colonialism and hovering uneasily between its head-hunting past and Western 'civilisation' ... a wonderfully assured piece of film-making, which is both visually stunning and politically effective. Not to be missed."

- Carl Gardner, Time Out (London)

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