Kayla Hill – Marred by lawsuits, deepfakes, kidnapping, and state raids of screenings, Pesta Babi, or 'Pig Feast', has been a contentious film with a dramatic reception.
Pesta Babi is a documentary that follows five Papuan elders and their communities facing the devastating impacts of Indonesia's food estate program – the largest deforestation project in the world, spanning over 2.5 million hectares of West Papuan land. The land being cleared is making way for Indonesian palm oil and sugarcane plantations to support the expansion of biofuel. The film was recently screened across Australia by multiple groups, including Aliansi Gusar, The Australia West Papua Association South Australia, the Australian National University Indonesia Institute, and the Pacific Climate Warriors.
The film opens with two dozen Papuan men carrying a 17-metre-long piece of wood being prepared for the 'red cross ceremony'. This ceremony has been completed 1800 times, wherein a red cross, often several metres long, is placed at a significant site on West Papuan land alongside a red painted sign asserting the Papuan tribe's opposition to the Indonesian government and foreign companies from entering. This symbolic act bears close resemblance to Jesus Christ carrying the cross through Jerusalem in the procession before his crucifixion, tying the strong Christian presence in West Papua with their political resistance.
The documentary's filmography shines through as a key highlight. Videographers powerfully capture the harrowing extent of deforestation in West Papua through wide shots of cleared forests and swamps, often only occupied by dozens of excavators, and small remnants of what used to be. As these shots accumulate, they force a sickening confrontation with the sheer scale of ecocide being carried out.
Interestingly, the documentary revealed that the Australian taxpayer-funded institution, Sugar Research Australia, develops sugarcane seeds for both private and public plantations in West Papua, thereby implicating foreign public funds into Indonesia's violent extraction and occupation.
A limitation of the documentary is its inability to balance information and storytelling. In many parts of the film, the intimate documentary turns into more of a YouTube-style expose, which makes for a jarring shift. This is particularly evident in a 15-minute section towards the end of the film using graphs and maps looked to have been made on PowerPoint. While the information revealed in these parts was indeed interesting, the change in tone was too dramatic and awkward a disruption. Friendlyjordies/Jordan Shank's documentary on the occupation of West Papua much better accomplishes this balance and on a much lower budget, no less.
Interestingly, the film offered no explicit representation of Papuan nationalism. We only ever see red crosses, not the Bintang Kejora, and hear mild messages of ecological concern rather than that of independence, let alone the definitive freedom call, Papua Merdeka. President of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) Benny Wenda said in a statement, it is a "moderate film, which does not show the real truth – that all West Papuans want freedom and independence instead of colonial 'development'." This seems to be a strategy by the filmmakers to appeal to a broader Indonesian apolitical society, amid anti-West Papuan sentiment. As a West Papuan activist Koteka Wenda articulated, the film is "building collective consciousness ... among ordinary Indonesians." Such a strategy appears successful, as evidenced by the documentary having screened in over 1000 locations in the country. Even amid this sanitisation, over 30 of these screenings have been shut down by Indonesian police or military, including at the University of Mataram. Another attempt to quell this film involved the publication of a video featuring Koteka Wenda's likeness, disparaging Pesta Babi in an AI-generated deepfake.
Since its release, one of the Papuan elders featured in the film, Mama Yasinta Moiwend, has been kidnapped and brought to Jakarta, and has been out of contact with her family for several days. Despite opposing the deforestation project in the documentary, she has since pursued a litigation against the directors of the film and spoke in support of Indonesia's food estate project.
Between the several controversies associated with the documentary, Pesta Babi ultimately offers insight to a mainstream audience of the struggles of West Papuan life under occupation. Whilst the magnitude of extraction, oligarchy, and expansion seem infinite, tenuous survival persists. The documentary ends with a group of Papuans sitting by a river, playing handmade drums and guitar, singing, "I love my land, I love my people. Day and night, I guard my land Papua."
Pesta Babi is available to watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/MpdrWgDRVf8?si=lVyFZr8FyFf9xCFt