Film director Yonri Revolt will join us for a film seminar, with a screening of scenes of the film Muman Minggil (The road to ancestor land - Jayapura, Papua, 2023, 150’), which Revolt made together with Mahardika Yudha. This unique documentary focuses on the work of anthropologist Arnold Ap, the museum where he worked and the music group Mambesak in Papua.

From 1978-1984, Mambesak sought out contextual methods for Papuan people to carry out works of cultural preservation, rediscovering ancestral values and knowledge which were increasingly lost amid colonialism and modernization. Their work was halted after Arnold Ap was murdered in 1984. Mambesak disbanded and what followed was a decline in cultural preservation activities in Papua. 

Muman Minggil attempts to collect and assemble fragments of information about the cultural working methods of Mambesak during their success. It interrogates how they contextualized ancestral values and knowledge into contemporary artistic works, placing all strata of Papuan society as part of their collective work.

Muman Minggil shows how art was used as a medium for education and activism in Papua in the 1970s and how relevant this is to the current state of Indonesian society. The film is a collaboration between the Yoikatra Collective in Timika and the Cenderawasih University Cultural Museum in Jayapura, and serves as the inaugural feature in their broader series dedicated to documenting Papuan epistemologies and ancestral knowledge.

Speaker

Yonri Revolt is a film director, editor, and writer based in Timika, Papua. Works like Mayday! May day! Mayday! (2022), The Silent Path (2024), Muman Minggil (2023), and Tete, Nene, Permisi (2025) were screened worldwide. Mayday! May day! Mayday! And The Silent Path premiered at IFFR and the latter won The Best Indonesian Feature Length Festival Film Dokumenter Yogyakarta. His playful style while working with archives, creates a new offering in storytelling. Using film as a medium, he connects different knowledge systems, such as ethno-astronomy, geomythology, and botanical theology.

Moderator

Nancy Jouwe is a freelance researcher, who is currently pursuing a PhD on Papuans becoming a diaspora, at the Social and Cultural Anthropology Dept, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Her work focuses on cultural heritage, arts and culture, transnational women’s movements, Dutch colonial history, slavery and its afterlife. She is a crown member of the Dutch Council for Culture. Her latest co-edited publication is The Gloria Wekker Reader (Duke University Press, 2026).

Format, date, time & venue

This film seminar will be held in the conference room of KITLV, Herta Mohr building, room 1.30, Witte Singel 27 A, Leiden, on Tuesday 31 March from 15.00–16.30 PM (CET).  

Time for Papua seminar series

A seminar series on the legacies and contemporary realities of West Papua. Papoea Huis, KITLV and the Wereldmuseum Leiden proudly present Time for Papua - an interdisciplinary seminar series dedicated to exploring the shared histories between the Netherlands and West Papua, and the ways these histories continue to shape the present. Read more.

Image

Poster Muman Minggil.

Flyer

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