Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me!

Overview

Several filmmakers discuss the introduction of Western modes of communication, especially film, to native cultures. While these tools can help a native people to document their own culture, it can also "swallow" their culture, encroaching upon and irreversibly altering it. The film takes its title from a book written by filmmaker Edmund Carpenter in 1972 about his engagement with media in Papua New Guinea.