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:
Wed 16 Sept PNG Independence Day - Dendy Cinema Canberra
17 September - Darwin International Film Festival
19 September - Cinema Nova Carlton
20 September - Sun Theatre Yarraville
20 September - Thornbury Picture House
21 September - Palace Cinemas Byron Bay
22 September - Dendy Cinema Southport
27 September World Rivers Day - Dendy Cinema Coorparoo
28 September - New Farm Cinemas
30 September - Dendy Cinema Newtown
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://www.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.