Banda
The islands that fed the world for centuries were emptied in a single generation. This is the story of the Banda Islands — and the long shadow of colonial violence.
Production Journey
Idea
Research
Development
Financing
Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production
Festival
Released
The Story
For over a century, the Banda Islands were the only source of nutmeg in the world. Their strategic value was so immense that in the early 17th century, the Dutch East India Company carried out one of history's most systematic acts of colonial genocide to maintain control of the spice trade.
The population of Banda was reduced from an estimated 15,000 to under 1,000. The survivors were enslaved, expelled, or absorbed. The Dutch seized the islands and the nutmeg trees — which the Bandanese had cultivated for centuries — and planted them across their colonial empire.
Banda is a documentary essay that moves between historical investigation and contemporary landscape. It travels to the islands today — to their volcanic slopes, their nutmeg groves, their graves and forts — asking what it means to inherit a landscape shaped by violence, and what it means to make a film about it.
Why This Story Matters
The Banda Islands are among the most historically significant places in the world that most people have never heard of. The violence of their colonization is foundational to the modern global economy — to the very concept of corporate capitalism, of colonial extraction, of racial hierarchy.
This film is important because the past it explores is not past. Its consequences are visible in global wealth inequality, in the continued marginalization of indigenous and local communities, in the ways we have learned to think about land and labor and value.
Production Notes
First cut exists.
We have been in post for four months. The first cut came in at 138 minutes — too long, too discursive in places, too brief in others. But the emotional throughline is there. The Banda Islands are speaking. We just need to listen more carefully to how.