Joe Leahy's Neighbours

Bob Connolly
Robin Anderson
1988
1 hour and 30 minutes

This film is the followup of First Contact. It traces the fortunes of Joe Leahy, the mixed-race son of Australian explorer Michael Leahy, in his uneasy relationship with his tribal neighbors. Joe built his coffee plantation on land bought from the Ganiga in the mid 1970s. European educated, raised in the highlands of Papua, freed by his mixed race from the entanglements of tribal obligation, Joe leads a Western lifestyle governed by individualism and the pursuit of affluence. While Joe may live in Western grandeur, he is still surrounded by his subsistence level Ganiga "neighbours," who never let him forget the original source of his prosperity. Joe spends much of his waking hours just keeping the lid on things. Filmmakers Connolly and Anderson lived for eighteen continuous months on the edge of Joe's plantation, in the "no man's land" between Leahy and the Ganiga. Their lively, non-judgemental narrative eloquently captures the conflicting values of tribalism and capitalism.

Anthropologist: 
Bob Connolly
Robin Anderson
Oceania: 
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