by FilmInk Staff
The environment defender striving to protect one of the world’s last great rivers will do a Q&A Screening tour in Australia of his award-winning documentary Sukundimi Walks Before Me
Emmanuel (Manu) Peni is leading his community’s campaign to protect the pristine Sepik River in his Papua New Guinea homeland from the proposed Frieda River copper-gold mine being pursued by the Chinese-owned Australian company PanAust.
At the Sydney Film Festival in June, New Zealand and Australian filmmakers Matasila Freshwater and Lachlan McLeod won the $40,000 Sustainable Future Award — the world’s largest environmental film prize — for Sukundimi Walks Before Me.
Matasila Freshwater also won Best New Zealand Director at the 2026 Doc Edge Festival for the film.
Six years in the making, the film follows co-producer Manu as he leads a grassroots resistance called Save the Sepik. For the people of PNG, The Sepik River is a lifeline, a complex ecosystem that connects and nurtures communities, providing livelihoods, cultural identity, and environmental stability.
Manu will participate in a series of curated Q&A Screenings in Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and the Northern Territory for the film’s Australian cinema release from mid-September. The Q&As will feature an array of expert guest panellists.
The film has impressed audiences on the festival circuit, with successful screenings this year at the Sydney Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) and The International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival FIFO Tahiti where the film had its World Premiere. It screens in Western Australia at Cinefest Oz this week and at the Darwin International Film Festival on September 17.
The Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape announced in May 2026, a taskforce to fast-track approval of the mine. It would be the largest mine in PNG’s history, requiring the construction of a tailings dam 17 times the volume of Sydney Harbour to store the mine’s waste – in an area of extremely high rainfall and seismic activity.
If developed, the project risks devastating one of the world’s most biodiverse and culturally diverse regions, causing irreparable harm to the environment and wellbeing of the Sepik people.
“Today, my paradise is an envy of outsiders, especially those who see only a reflection of their economic and capitalistic greed. They continue to reduce my home as fragmented bits and pieces of things which can or cannot be sold, they call these resources. We only see ourselves in our home,” says Emmanuel Peni.
The Q&A screenings Manu Peni will feature at include the following confirmed dates and cinemas:
Canberra: Wed 16 Sept PNG Independence Day Dendy Cinema Canberra
Darwin: 17 September Darwin International Film Festival
Melbourne: 19 September Cinema Nova Carlton
Melbourne: 20 September Sun Theatre Yarraville
Melbourne: 20 September Thornbury Picture House
Byron Bay: 21 September Palace Cinemas Byron Bay
Gold Coast: 22 September Dendy Cinema Southport
Brisbane: 27 September World Rivers Day Dendy Cinema Coorparoo
Brisbane: 28 September New Farm Cinemas
Sydney: 30 September Dendy Cinema Newtown
Sydney: 1 October Hayden Orpheum Cremorne
As the list is updated, details including session times and panellists who will join Manu Peni at each Q&A will appear on the Screen. Inc website – https://screeninc.com.au/screeninc-films/sukundimi-walks-before-me/
Sukundimi Walks Before Me is produced by Brown Sugar Apple Grunt Productions and Walking Fish Production. Principal production funding from Screen Australia, in association with Pacific Islanders in Communications, Doc Society, and VicScreen. Financed with support from The Post Lounge, Random Good, Shark Island Foundation, New Zealand Film Commission, Three Springs Foundation and RNZ. Australia and Aotearoa distribution by Screen Inc.
Sukundimi Walks Before Me is a collaboration between Papua New Guinea, Australia and Aotearoa-based teams.
About Project Sepik and the Save the Sepik Campaign
Project Sepik is a community-led movement working with Indigenous leaders and communities along the Sepik River to protect the river and surrounding lands from extractive development, in collaboration with Jubilee Australia Research Centre and Aid/Watch Australia through the Save the Sepik Campaign. Project Sepik has been active since 2016 and operates through local authority structures, community meetings, cultural leadership, and engagement with legal and policy processes at national and international levels. https://savethesepik.org/
About Jubilee Australia
Jubilee Australia conducts research-based advocacy, in partnership with other organisations and communities across Australia and the Asia-Pacific, to defend the rights of people and the planet over profit, and hold corporations and governments accountable. Jubilee Australia has worked with Project Sepik since 2018 to seek to protect the Sepik River. http://www.jubileeaustralia.org
About Brown Sugar Apple Grunt Productions
Brown Sugar Apple Grunt Productions has forged a distinctive voice as a production company with a unique kaupapa. Our goal is to tell award winning stories unique to Aotearoa, New Zealand and the South Pacific that reach local and international audiences. Our passion is innovative content that celebrates diversity, in particular Māori and Pacific perspectives. https://bsagproductions.com
About Walking Fish Productions
Walking Fish Productions is a Melbourne-based, boutique production company that specialises in premium documentaries for global audiences, with work spanning quirky stories, urgent issues and unseen worlds. Recent documentaries include Mockbuster, which won the Feature Documentary Audience Award at the 2025 Adelaide Film Festival, and Sukundimi Walks Before Me (2026). Other titles include Asian Academy Award-winning Clean (2022), which premiered in competition at SXSW, and Hakamada: The Longest Held Deathrow Inmate in the World (2021), broadcast on Al Jazeera.
www.walkingfish.com.au.
About Screen Inc.
Screen Inc. is an Australia-based boutique film distribution company with 25+ years of experience in the film industry. We embrace our heritage of independence, working closely with our many partners – filmmakers, networks, and fellow travellers – both local and overseas, to maximise revenue and visibility for the content we represent across Australia, New Zealand, and globally. Screen Inc’s 2026 release slate includes drama Alphabet Lane (MIFF), and coming up, Kristen Stewart’s The Chronology of Water (Cannes), Body Blow (Fantastic Fest), Yesterday Island (Warsaw Film Festival) and documentary Sukundimi Walks Before Me. www.screeninc.com.au.
