Lukas´ Moment

This is about a piece of contemporary everyday life in West Papua, one of the conflict areas in Indonesia. Instead of reproducing Papua with stereotyping in chilling and horror images of conflict, the filmmaker is more interested to treat his camera to create an intimate, observational and emphatic story about Lukas, a young Marind fisherman who is trying hard to finance his own education. He starts a small business with the support of a development project. Starting with a slow and atmospheric rythm, this film follows Lukas’ attempts to sell his catch to the market in capital city without going through middlemen, which apparently causes difficulties. In the post-Suharto regimethat has seen the growth of an emergent independence movement in West Papua, this film chronicles the drama of an indigenous people, the youth whose cultural identity and livelihoods remain marginal to the Indonesia nation-state.