On Behalf of the Living

Ton Otto, Christian Suhr, Gary Kildea

2023 / 105 minutes
Denmark / Netherlands, Papua New Guinea
Tok Pisin, Paluai, English, Danish, Dutch with English Subtitles

On Behalf of the Living unfolds on two levels: an exploration of humanity’s preoccupation with life after death and the story of one anthropologist’s experiment—taking his lifelong 'participatory' research on a Papua New Guinea island to its logical, if counter-intuitive, conclusion. The film is composed of three strands. The first includes footage that Ton filmed with his parents in the Netherlands, where discussions of faith, God, and eternity are argued out ‘en famille’. The second strand takes place on Baluan Island, where Christian documents Ton’s reunion with his adoptive family. Before long, the two find themselves entangled in complex disputes—both spiritual and personal. The third strand, in a different register altogether, consists of a series of dialogues between Ton and Christian, one-on-one. Through alternating first-person perspectives, they interrogate and challenge each other with rare directness, questioning the very viability of their experiment—and even the anthropological project as a whole. This strand functions as a Greek Chorus, providing a check on the ideas and insights emerging from the main storyline. While probing the realm of the ancestors, the film’s primary source and frame of reference remain the lived experiences of the people—mostly family—that it embraces with its lens.