A feature documentary by Uri Schneider for ARD’s series Länder – Menschen – Abenteuer, also broadcast on Arte. It crosses many regions and stories of Papua New Guinea, and we organised the whole shoot.
By Marc Dozier · Updated November 2026
Uri Schneider filmed in Papua New Guinea in September 2024. The film opens at the Goroka Show, the great traditional show of the Highlands. On the Sepik River, it meets Collis Pinga, of the Save the Sepik association, who campaigns to protect the river and to inform the communities living along it about the Frieda River mine planned upstream.
Around Rabaul, the film turns to the Duke of York Islands. On Moalim, the crew filmed how shell money is made: a slow, painstaking craft behind a traditional currency.
A further chapter follows MAF, the Mission Aviation Fellowship: an airline run by missionaries that flies across the country and plays a vital part in travel to remote areas of Papua New Guinea.
Fifteen days, three regions
The shoot lasted only fifteen days, yet it covered the Highlands, the Sepik and the Rabaul area. No road links these regions, so the itinerary relied on six domestic flights for a crew of three: Uri Schneider, his camera operator and Marc Dozier as fixer. That is eighteen seats to book, confirm and, when schedules changed, rebook.
Organised from scratch
Papua New Guinea Fixer handled the whole organisation of the shoot: permits, logistics, security, accommodation, transport and translation. The permits took a little over a month, because we applied early with a complete file. Marc Dozier was also the film’s drone pilot.
With communities Marc has known for years, filming itself went smoothly. The hard part was the schedule.
When the flight was cancelled
One sequence was planned in a remote part of the Highlands. The flight was cancelled, and the next one was three days away: exactly the time we had for that sequence. We changed course completely. The crew flew to Rabaul instead, with a new travel plan and new subjects for the sequences.
Marc’s network made it possible to set everything up at short notice, and the sequences filmed there turned out to be some of the strongest in the film.
From the director
In September 2024, I produced and directed a documentary on Papua New Guinea for ARD, Germany’s Public TV channel. It aired in the series ‘Länder – Menschen – Abenteuer’, and was later broadcast prime time on the prestigious Arte channel. PNG is hands down the most complex [country] I have ever filmed in. Honestly I can’t imagine having done it without Marc Dozier as my fixer.
Marc handled everything from scratch: filming permits with the National Film Institute and approvals from provincial government, domestic flights, accommodation, and access to the communities. On the ground, he took us from the Goroka Show and the Asaro Mudmen to the Sepik River [and] Rabaul, and even arranged for us to fly with MAF pilots. When flights were cancelled or plans changed overnight, which happens constantly in PNG, he always found a solution and worthwhile alternatives to film.
Beyond the logistics, Marc knows the country and its people inside out. He speaks Tok Pisin fluently, has friends in many of the villages we visited, and people trust him, opening doors that would have stayed closed to us otherwise. If that wasn’t enough, we also took advantage of him being an excellent drone pilot adding breathtaking aerial shots, which gave superb additional production value to our movie.
In short, I warmly recommend Marc to any production planning to film in Papua New Guinea.
Uri SchneiderJournalist, writer & director · Read on LinkedIn →
What producers can take from it
- A crew of three can cover a whole country. Director, camera operator and fixer were enough to film three regions in fifteen days.
- Always have a plan B. Flights in Papua New Guinea are cancelled often, sometimes with no replacement for days. Every flight is multiplied by the size of the crew: prepare an alternative location and story for each leg.
- Apply for permits early. With a complete file submitted well ahead, ours took a little over a month.
More on lead times and paperwork in our guide to filming permits in Papua New Guinea.
The film
| Original title | Papua-Neuguinea – Reise in eine andere Welt |
| Series | Länder – Menschen – Abenteuer |
| Broadcasters | ARD and Arte (2025) |
| Writer & director | Uri Schneider |
| Production | Tele Aviv Productions |
| Filmed | September 2024 |
| Length | 44 min |
| Our role | Full organisation: permits, logistics, security, accommodation, transport, translation · drone pilot |
Filming across several regions?
Highlands, rivers, islands: we plan the route, the flights and the alternatives.