Here is a fascinating exchange between two master carvers from indigenous cultures in very different parts of this world. In the company of Elaine Monds, whose Victoria, British Columbia gallery promotes a most enlightened policy towards the cultivation of its artists, John Marsten, a Coast Salish carver travels to Papua New Guinea to learn about another of the world’s great carving traditions from Iatmul carver Teddy Balangu. In turn, Teddy journeys to Canada as artist-in-residence at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology. Visually stunning and thematically rich, Killer Whale and Crocodile captures the lives of two artists creating at a very high level, both in their work and in their growing friendship.

(Canada, 2007, 48 min., in English and Iatmul with English subtitles.) – G.R.