Oceania

KORIAM’S LAW is set in the Jacquinot Bay area of Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province. Here the Aus­tralian anthro­pol­o­gist Andrew Lattas meets the philoso­pher-infor­mant Peter Avarea of Matong … read more

Told by a sort of inti­mate voice, the film is the nar­ra­tive of eth­nol­o­gist Stéphane Breton’s last trip to a small coun­try in the New Guinea high­lands, where he used … read more

Silent movie with musi­cal accom­pa­ni­ment by Günter A. Buchwald In the wake of the raging suc­cess of his first fea­ture-length docu­d­ra­ma NANOOK OF THE NORTH, Para­mount Pic­tures com­mis­sioned R. J. … read more

Sima Urale’s film O TAMAITI por­trays dif­fi­cul­ties expe­ri­enced by Poly­ne­sian people migrat­ing to Aotearoa New Zealand. Through an explo­ration of her own Samoan cul­ture, Urale address­es issues of finan­cial hard­ship … read more

PARADISE BENT is one of the first cin­e­mat­ic con­sid­er­a­tions of Samoan fa’afafines-male chil­dren who are raised to be women. The film doc­u­ments how in large Samoan fam­i­lies there may be … read more

Viki, a sen­si­tive Rotu­man girl lis­tens intent­ly to her father who is telling her the story of the myth­i­cal first inhab­i­tant of the island, the “War­rior Woman”. With her strength and deter­mi­na­tion to sur­vive, she became a role model for young Viki who is shamed by her vil­lage for being poor and the daugh­ter of a wrong­ly con­vict­ed thief. In her fight for the redeem of her family’s name and against a cor­rupt­ed court she enters into a sur­re­al realm tem­porar­i­ly before coming to terms with her per­son­al sit­u­a­tion in a chang­ing world.
Vil­soni Hereniko: “I see myself as a sto­ry­teller who rec­og­nizes that film is the most pow­er­ful medium for telling a story, a medium that has his­tor­i­cal­ly not been acces­si­ble or avail­able to Pacif­ic Islanders. It is my hope that audi­ences every­where will not only be enter­tained by this story, but will walk away with a pre­cious sense about Rotuma, its cul­ture and its people. More than ever before, may we all rec­og­nize that we need the wisdom of our ances­tors. With this film I want to express the ancient Rotu­man belief that: the land has eyes the land has teeth and knows the truth.” 

TWO CARS, ONE NIGHT is a tale of first love. Romeo and his broth­er, Ed, sit in the car wait­ing for their par­ents to come out of the pub. This … read more