Unity Through Culture

Soanin Kilangit is determined to unite the people and attract international tourism through the revival of culture on Baluan Island in the South Pacific. He organizes the largest cultural festival ever held on the island, but some traditional leaders argue that Baluan never had culture and that culture comes from the white man and is now destroying their old tradition. Others, however, take the festival as a welcome opportunity to revolt against ’70 years of cultural oppression’ by Christianity. A struggle to define the past, present and future of Baluan culture erupts to the sound of thundering log drum rhythms.

Christian Suhr

Christian Suhr is a filmmaker and professor of anthropology at Aarhus University. His research has focused on experiences of spirit possession, psychiatric illnesses, religious healing, and how film can be used to approach unseen dimensions of human life. He is the director and author of the award-winning film and book ’Descending with angels’ (MUP 2019,www.descendingwithangels.com), and the award-winning films ‘Ngat is dead’ (2009, with Ton Otto and Steffen Dalsgaard) and ‘Unity through culture’ (2011, with Ton Otto). His latest film is ‘Light upon light’ (2022).

Ton Otto

Ton Otto, a Dutch citizen, is professor of anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark. He has conducted long-term ethnographic field research in Papua New Guinea and has published widely on issues of social and cultural change with a focus on the relationship between religion, historicity and agency. From the start of his fieldwork, he has made extensive use of audio-visual media, and this has resulted in a number of exhibition and film productions, including the award-winning films ‘Ngat is dead’ (2009, with Christian Suhr and Steffen Dalsgaard) and ‘Unity through Culture’ (2011, with Christian Suhr).