PASIFIKA FILM FEST 2022
Pasifika Film Fest 2022 Trailer
FEATURE FILMS
Tattooing | Voyaging | Diaspora | Social Issues | Arts | Dance
WAIKIKI
Dir: Christopher Kahunahana [Hawaii]
OPENING NIGHT FILM
When a Native Hawaiian hula dancer escaping her abusive boyfriend crashes her beat-up van into a mysterious homeless man, she finds herself flung into a surrealistic journey of self-exploration and enlightenment.
WHETŪ MĀRAMA - BRIGHT STAR
Toby Mills [Aotearoa New Zealand]
Polynesians were the most adventurous voyagers on earth. We sailed the vast Pacific by the stars. But these ancient arts were lost for 600 years. Then the stars re-aligned and three men from far flung islands met by chance. Nainoa Thompson from Hawaii, Mau Pialug from Satawal and Hek Busby from Aotearoa / New Zealand. Together they revived our place as the greatest navigators on the planet.
SOSEFINA
Dir: HInano Tanielu [Hawaii/Tahiti], Roger Artola [USA]
Sosefina is about two Polynesian girls that face adversity and through their struggles they are forced to choose between continuing on the straight and narrow or enter the seedy world of adult entertainment. Inspired by a true story.
TEINE SĀ: THE ANCIENT ONES
Dir: Lisa Taouma [Samoa/Aotearoa New Zealand]
Australian premiere
Teine Sā is a series of stories of modern day issues impacting Pacific women who look to the atua of the past for guidance.
TEP TOK: OUR LINES CONNECT US
Dir: Julia Mage'au Gray [Papua New Guinea]
A documentary following the skin marking stories of Melanesian women living in New Zealand and Australia with Papua New Guinea and Fiji heritage.
The documentary shares the conversations around revival and transmission of knowledge from the perspectives of First Peoples Revivalists from Papua New Guinea, India, Philippines, Borneo, Taiwan, Inuit, Hawai’i and Aotearoa, New Zealand.
NEVERLAND
Dir: Herbert Leota [Samoa/Australia]
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
With seven days to pay back a drug-dealer, three young Polynesian men take up a job from a local crime lord in order to set things straight.
SHORT FILMS
Talanoa Shorts | Animation Shorts | Australia Pacific Shorts | Installation shorts
BURNING OF THE GODS
Dir: Karin Williams [Kuki Airani]
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
TALANOA SHORTS
With his island at risk from industrial tourism and environmental degradation, a boy travels back in time to reconnect with his ancestors.
52 METRES LATER
Dir: Frederic Rabbaud, Clotilde Gourdon [New Caledonia]
TALANOA SHORTS
New Caledonia. Puré Kwé, 12 years old, has finally found the old pig trap. Nûnûû, his grandfather, often talks about that. Although no one has seen pigs since The Event, Puré Kwé tries to fix the trap when he is interrupted by Anyââ, his grandmother.
CROSSING SPACES
Dir: Lola Quan Bautista [CHamoru]
TALANOA SHORTS
It’s the Christmas season and a Chamorro family from Guam living in Northern California is busily preparing for their annual Nobenan Niñu Jesus. Through the preparation of kélaguen and singing traditional songs, the grandchildren learn about their culture and Chamorro language—a language that they do not speak—but will happily sing alongside their grandparents. The nobena practice, often led by women, continues to preserve and perpetuate the Chamorro language and values and brings together extended families across spaces.
RAIDS
Dir: Jade Jackson [Samoa/Aotearoa New Zealand]
Raids is based on the treatment of Pacific Island families during the New Zealand Dawn Raids of the 1970’s. The short film is an intimate look into a police raid, as told through the eyes of a young girl Losa and her father Lupematasila.
.jpg)
E LELE LE TOLOA
Dir: Selu Kian-Faletoese [Samoa]
TALANOA SHORTS
“E Lele Le Toloa (The Toloa Bird Soars)” follows the journey of a young Samoan man by the name of Tui Meki. A portrait documentary that follows the life and heartfelt journey of a son of the Pacific, that migrated to Aotearoa in the pursuit of education and the promise of a greater life. Driven by a passion for industrial design and the blessings of his aiga, Tui unknowingly finds himself on a journey of self-discovery and identity. A journey where Tui is confronted with various hardships and lessons that will potentially shape him into the individual that he is today.
THE FUTURE BEHIND US
Dir: Melodie Turori [Aotearoa/USA]
TALANOA SHORTS
This is a story about reclaiming indigeneity through ancestral listening and connection to the land, as told through Pasifika Transmissions. Pasifika Transmissions honors the ancestors’ pieces residing on Tongva land at the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum (PIEAM) in Long Beach, California, with works from nine indigenous Pasifika artists living in diaspora.
.png)
SOLI BULA
Dir: Meli Tuqota [Fiji]
ANIMATION SHORTS
In an alternate reality Fiji where tradition and culture was never eroded by colonialism, a new Drua (ship) is about to be put to sea and will demand a steep toll for the final stage of its launch.
TAONGA: AN ARTIST ACTIVIST
Dir: Glenda Tuaine [Kuki Airani]
TEP TOK SESSION
Mike’s life story is a journey of art, his connection to artistic expression in all its forms is what wakes him up in the morning and sees him retire to bed late at night. This short documentary seeks to capture Mike’s connection with art and teaching. How he experiments and pushes boundaries when others will remain cautious. How he provokes and questions the status quo always seeking knowledge and answers to questions that others may be too conservative to ask.
ALEXANDER BALL
Dir: Jessica Magro [Samoa]
Celebrates Samoan-Australian trans woman of colour Ella Ganza, and the Meanjin ballroom scene, as they get ready for The Alexander Ball.
MOHO
Dir: Michael Q Ceballos [CHamoru]
In 2021 surfing made its debut at the Tokyo Olympics in the waters of Tsurigasaki Beach without a Hawai‘i Surf Team competing. If Duke Paoa Kahanamoku returned today, how would this Native Hawaiian Olympic swimming champion and Godfather of modern surfing feel about the absence of a Hawai‘i Surf Team at the 2020 Olympic Summer Games? MOHO asks this question through the lens of a young, kanaka maoli boy named ‘Apo when the ‘uhane (spirit) of Paoa returns to Waikīkī.
MAUI: ADVENTURES CAPTURING THE SUN
Dir: Jus G [Hawaii]
ANIMATION SHORTS
When the days are too short for life to survive, a Hawaiian boy fights the sun in order to slow it down and save his people.
URCHIN
Dir: Taofia Pelesasa [Tokelau/Samoa]
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
AUSTRALIAN PACIFIC SHORTS
After a family dispute Livi opts for a night out with his estranged brother Sio. However, it's not the night Livi imagined, taken on a journey of mischief and at the cross-roads of a decision he never imagined making that night.
PONEKE
Dir:
INSTALLATION SHORTS
More information to come
UNTITLED
Dir: Gabriel Faatau'uu-Satiu
AUSTRALIAN PACIFIC SHORTS
INSTALLATION SHORTS
An experimental film by Satiu Studios highlighting what it means to be brown through a Sāmoan lens from the greater west Sydney.
SHE IS PASIFIKA
Dir: Vanessa Gordon [PNG]
She Is Pasifika was written to celebrate culture, beauty and the strength of Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian women. No matter where we are in the world. We are Pasifika. Our culture is sacred part of our identity, and identity to be proud of and She Is Pasifika the shirt film was created to remind Pasifika women that they are worthy and deserve to be celebrated. Women from the Pasifika community in Brisbane volunteered to bring the poem to life in front of the camera. Women from Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian communities came forward and were filmed by Vanessa and her daughter Kalani and together they created She Is Pasifika the short film.
Image to come
MY SKIN AN ISLAND
Dir: Francoise Schneiders
INSTALLATION SHORTS
My Skin An Island is an experimental moving image work made through the lens of grief resulting from the death of my Tahitian mother and the ensuing unravelling threads of my cultural identity.
FO'I MAI PEPE
Dir: Andrew Faleatua (Samoa/Aotearoa)
INSTALLATION SHORTS
THE WEAVER
Dir: James Davis [Guåhan]
WHETŪ MÃRAMA SESSION
“THE WEAVER” is a mini-documentary film about a Guam
weaver named Lia Barcinas as she shares her family’s history
and legacy of coconut-leaf weaving, as well as her real life
experiences in the craft.
CHICKEN
Dir: Alana Hicks (PNG)
PACIFIC AUSTRALIAN SHORTS SESSION
ALA MOANA BOYS
Dir: Keli'i Grace [Hawaii]
TALANOA SHORTS
Blamed for a crime they did not commit, five young men in 1930s Hawai'i must consider their futures and their families as they weigh the consequences of taking action.