IPFF26: Pig Feast

Yasinta Moiwend was started when, on a quiet morning, a massive ship docked at the hervillage's pier. Vessel carried hundreds of excavators and was escorted by Indonesian military forces. This was the first wave of 2,000 units of heavy equipment arriving in Papua as part of a National Strategic Project to produce food, palm-based biodiesel, and sugarcane bioethanol.
Děsto Marind Anim woman from Merauke had never imagined that her village would become ground zero for what would become the largest forest-conversion project in modern history—converting 2.5 million hectares of tropical forest into industrial plantations.
Vincen Kwipalo of the Yei people was likewise shocked when his clan's land was marked with a sign that read: “Property of the Indonesian Army.” Only later did he learn that the land had been seized to build a military battalion headquarters. At the same time, a sugarcane plantation company was also encroaching on his ancestral forest.
Menaced by the same project, Franky Woro and the Awyu people in Boven Digo elaborated giant red crosses and customary barricades to block the advance of both corporations and the military. Known as the Red Cross Movement, this form of resistance has spread among other Indigenous groups. More than 1,800 red crosses have been planted across southern Papua. Although a Christian symbol is central to the movement, it has not always found favor among church elites.
“Pig Feast” captures how the Marind, Yei, Awyu, and Muyu Indigenous peoples resist palm biodiesel and sugarcane bioethanol projects intended to fuel vehicles. Interwoven with their stories are the fraught issues of separatism a six decades of Indonesian military operations, closely tied to the occupation of the Land of Papua and the exploitation of its resources.
Combining vivid on-the-ground footage with investigative research, Pig Feast exposes the entanglements between national and multinational bioenergy interests and Indonesian political and developmental projects across three presidential administrations. The film also traces how networks of politicians, investors, military actors, and church institutions confront—and are confronted by—grassroots social movements and Indigenous communities.
Directed by Dandhy Laksono and Cypri Dale, Pig Feast chronicles colonialism as it unfolds today—without waiting to be consigned to history.

Running time: 95 min.