More than 200 films from all over the Pacific are being screened at the 44th annual Hawai’i International Film Festival’s Pacific Showcase through Nov. 10, giving filmmakers and creatives from Oceania a platform to meet and share ideas.
The film “Myths and Maidens,” a documentary by Lisa Taouma was screened on October 7 and attracted a diverse audience. The film talks about native beauty of Pacific Islander women and the history of colonial gaze. Tauoma herself is a Samoan New Zealand film and television director, writer, and producer.
“I think my favorite part was the opening of the film, just the descriptions, showing the different postcards, stamps, and showing how people tried to push whiteness onto Polynesia, Micronesian women,” said Callie Janza, audience member and UH Manoa student.
Tauoma’s film highlights the voices of Pacific celebrities, dancers, activists, scholars, and more. Every person interviewed in the film strongly advocates for a shift in representation of Pasifika women.
“We have a wonderful Pacific Islander showcase, we also have Pacific Islanders in Communications who does such great work with the community as well as our focus on Made in Hawaiʻi shorts for a lot of rising Kanaka Maoli voices, just connecting them with sources of funding,” said Ross Matlin, HIFF Partnerships Manager.
This year’s HIFF theme is “creating new traditions,” with challenging stereotypes and questioning colonial trauma the main themes of the Pacific Showcase.
“Film festivals are really just a celebration of films that we get to premiere which is the fun part of films and just celebrating the stories here, bringing people together and really just being able to launch them into the world into further success,” Matlin said.
