Tribal Life: Papua New Guinea

High in the cliffs surrounding the Koke people of Papua New Guinea are galleries of their ancestors. Hung in chairs, overlooking the village. Mummies, preserved for the living to visit and celebrate. Since the 1950s, as European missionaries traveled through this region, the ritual of mummifying your dead was forbidden. The village elder, Gemtasu, wanted to change that. He did not want to be buried in the soil for no one to see. When his time came, he wanted his relatives to mummify him as he mummified his father. His time came, and expedition leader and photographer Ulla Lohmann was there to document it, honoring his wish to share his story with the world.

Charley Boorman embarks on an adventure in Sydney and travels up the Pacific Rim through Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan, eventually finishing in Tokyo, Japan.

Pawa Meri (Powerful Women) is a six-part documentary series portraying the lives of six Papua New Guinean women who have each achieved extraordinary things in life. The women come from diverse backgrounds and represent a variety of themes relevant to development in PNG.

Set among the turquoise waters and lethal wildlife of Australia’s Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait, The Straits is an exotic, darkly humorous crime drama. The Montebellos are not your average Australian family. Modern day smugglers, their family business is transporting drugs into Australia and guns and exotic wildlife out, making use of ties of blood and loyalty in the Torres Strait Islands.

The true story of the brutal World War II military campaign fought between Australia and Japan in the green hell of the mountains of Papua New Guinea. Told from both the Japanese and Australian perspectives the documentary also explores the impact of the decisions of high command on the soldiers at the front line.

David Attenborough explains the enormous growth of interest in tribal art, and explores the emotions which lie behind the masks and decorations of primitive people.