BLACK HARVEST

BLACK HARVEST is a story of colonial catastrophe and divided souls seemingly from the pen of Joseph Conrad but it's true. Joe Leahy's mother was a New Guinea native, his father among the first whites to explore the highland peoples. Though a scorned half-breed, Joe worked hard and became a successful western style farmer, never forgetting his aboriginal roots. In 1985 he and the progressive Ganiga tribe optimistically united in a coffee-growing venture that should prosper with the 1991 harvest. But recession hits the coffee trade. Wages drop. Ganiga men abruptly flee the fields to join a tribal war. Joe finds himself in a multicultural meltdown, heartbreakingly detailed by documentarians Connolly and Anderson, sometimes at risk to their own lives. C.C. In English and English subtitled native dialect.