PNG Digitisation Project and NFSA Restores: Tukana

A close relationship

Michelle Baru Toro and Zoe Maya at the NFI

The NFSA is the custodian of approximately 3,000 titles of PNG material. This is not surprising given the close relationship and intertwined history of Australia and its former colony and nearest neighbour, which celebrated 50 years of independence on 16 September 2025. The island country has long been a popular subject for Australian documentary makers.

Since 2021, the NFSA has been working with the National Film Institute of Papua New Guinea to help them with preserving and storing their film archive. Key to the project has been the conservation treatment and digitisation of high-priority and at-risk films about PNG and by PNG filmmakers. The project also encompasses practical and logistical support, including producing training videos to assist with ongoing preservation, improvements to film storage facilities, and a Remote Onsite Digital Access (RODA) system so the NFI can access their newly digitised films onsite.

This work follows the Central Australian Aboriginal Digitisation Project in which the NFSA worked closely with Traditional Owners and the Strehlow Research Centre in a co-designed project to preserve and digitise at-risk films and audio recordings from the Strehlow Collection, one of the most important collections relating to Indigenous ceremonial life in the world.

Explore more Central Australian Aboriginal Digitisation Project

NFSA Restores: Tukana

The NFI is a semi-autonomous institution established by a 1994 Act of Parliament and responsible for producing, encouraging the making of, and preserving cultural documentaries. The NFI has a collection of significant cultural, historical and political documentary films, as well as Tukana – Husat I Asua (Chris Owen and Albert Toro, 1982), widely regarded as PNG's most important feature film. 

Tukana – Husat I Asua (Who’s to Blame) was born from a groundbreaking collaboration between Australian director Chris Owen – a driving force behind the creation of the NFI – and Albert Toro, the trailblazing writer, director, actor and MP hailed as the father of PNG cinema. With dialogue in Tok Pisin (an official and widely spoken language in PNG), the feature tells the story of Tukana (played by Toro), a university dropout who returns to his village in Buka Passage, North Solomons, but rebels against his parents’ wishes for him to marry a local schoolteacher (Regina Talba) and settle down.

Now digitally restored by the NFSA in partnership with Spectrum Films, Tukana – Husat I Asua has been gifted to the NFI to mark 50 years of Papua New Guinea’s independence. The restoration began with in-house conservation and 2K scanning of the first-generation 16mm colour negative, before being digitally cleaned and restored at Spectrum Films in consultation with Zoe Maya, a film archivist from the NFI, who came to Sydney to advise on the grade. The NSFA’s audio services team restored the audio in-house from the 16mm mono final mag film following conservation and 2K scanning.

Watch another clip from NFSA Restores: Tukana

Saving at-risk films

The NFI is situated in Goroka in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The humid climate, and previous flooding in the region, has made the films in the NFI collection susceptible to high levels of damaging vinegar syndrome and decomposition. Without preservation-standard storage facilities on site, the quickest way to save at-risk NFI films was for them to undergo conservation treatment and preservation digitisation at the NFSA. Where there were film components in better condition already in the NFSA collection, we used these to achieve the best possible outcome. 

Some of the documentaries selected for initial conservation treatment and digitisation were Rabaul: The Past Remains (Richard Tucker, 1968); Axes and Aré: Stone Tools of the Duna (J Peter White, 1973); Ileksen: Politics for Papua New Guinea (Gary Kildea, 1977); Sepik River (1977); MalaganLabadama: A Tribute to Buk Buk (Chris Owen, 1982); The Red Bowman (Chris Owen, 1982); and Gogodala: A Cultural Revival? (Chris Owen, 1983).

We completed digitisation of the NFI films to preservation standard by April 2024.

A mobile studio

Now that we’d digitised the at-risk films, there was just one problem: the NFI had no suitable facilities to view them onsite. Enter RODA: the Remote Onsite Digital Access system, a mobile studio designed and built by the NFSA to be transported to Goroka. RODA includes digital storage, high-end screens, film post-production equipment including grading and editing software/tools, and oral history recording equipment. The NFI now have access to their digitised film cultural heritage for research and sharing. At the NFI’s request, the NFSA will retain the digital preservation copies of their films for safekeeping, since these large files require storage on LTO-tape in multiple locations for long-term preservation.

In May 2023, then-NFI Director Michelle Baru Toro and Film Archivist Zoe Maya visited the NFSA for a detailed training program in film handling and storage, conservation, digitisation, cataloguing, digital access and equipment maintenance. While at the NFSA, they also co-designed two training videos, partly narrated in Tok Pisin, which the NFSA produced for NFI staff to use onsite at Goroka:

There is potential for these archival training videos to be adapted for use by other Pacific audiovisual archives or remote First Nations media and cultural organisations.

We also transported archival film cans, vinegar testing tools and personal protective equipment to Goroka so the NFI could repackage their entire film archives for better long-term preservation. Michelle and Zoe returned to the NFSA in 2024 for follow-up training about RODA and implementing a new cataloguing system for the NFI film collection.

Kambek

Kambek means ‘go back’ or ‘return’ in Tok Pisin. There is certain to be more culturally significant PNG material in the NFSA collection than what has already been digitised. We will continue to work with the NFI to research and better understand this material so that more of it can be digitally returned for viewing onsite at the NFI into the future.

This project has been supported through the International Cultural Diplomacy Arts Fund (ICDAF).

NFSA Restores: Tukana – Husat I Asuascreened at Paradise Cinema in Port Moresby and Arc Cinema in Canberra on 4 November 2025.

Looking for more?

• Watch a clip from NFSA Restores: Tukana featuring future PNG politician Francesca Semoso
• Learn about other digitally restored films in our NFSA Restores online collection
• Stream over 70 titles from our collection on NFSA Player

Main image: Chris Owen (with camera), Albert Toro (right) and Timothy Hamanin (far right) filming Tukana – Husat I Asua (Who’s to Blame), 1982. NFSA title: 1823971