Transcript
NIGEL VAGANA: It was a bit of a labour of love, and also, just on my part, an opportunity for me to showcase and support some of our talented people who just happen to be in the film industry that I was sort of connected with a few years ago. And it sort of just rolled on from there. We saw a few festivals in Sydney that were really well received and online a lot of people were asking 'why aren't you in New Zealand?' That was the first time we realised there wasn't actually a Pacific film festival here. I thought there would have been on here about 50 years ago. But anyway, it's great to be showcasing and showing some love for Wellington and New Zealand.
KORO VAKA'UTA: And I guess, if anything, it shows that there is that content out there that Pacific content when it comes to the silver screen, isn't there?
NV: There is. And if you think about if you jump on the internet or if you jump on YouTube, or even Facebook and you type in 'funny island videos' or 'funny Tongans, Samoans, and Cook Islands and Niueans', they are everywhere online and i think that with technology these days it's actually given us the opportunity and the platform to be able to do our own stuff quite cheaply. You can just get a phone and record something in your back yard and you can download an app, jump online and edit it - in a day you can have a short film. So it's become a lot more accessible for our people across the Pacific, which I guess helps add value and numbers to these new emerging film makers.
KV: There's around about a dozen films being showcased in this festival and the topics do range from sports to culture and things like that, but does there seem to be a running thread through all of the films?
NV: I think we got about 26 films. And it's only a dozen because we only a couple of sessions we put sort of five or six short films together which might only be five and 15 minutes long, so we've crammed them into one session. We've got six or seven in one, six or seven in another and we've also got a kids sort of section that shows five or six kid’s films. But basically the common thread to put through is Pacific people and Pacific artists showcasing their talents, firstly. And secondly, issues that affect our people. So we've actually got three different sections, that's the short film section, then we've got our documentary-type section, and it's a documentary that highlights the challenges that are unique to the Pacific and that are also real in the Pacific. So there's a film there on climate change, there's a film on healthy oceans, there's a film there on fa'afafine and trasngender. There's a lot of different types of films, then you've got your feature films, your big go through your ice cream and your popcorn kind of films and watch a story. We want to cater for all of our people being able to showcase their uniqueness in the one area at the one time.
KV: Any plans to expand further?
NV: So we've sort of taken it on the road already a little bit, we've had requests to bring it over to Hawaii, take it to regional areas of Australia and through different areas of the Pacific. They're just had the arts festival in Guam last year, and there was some talk around the next one in four years’ time. I think people are sort of excited about it, it's just working out the best way to get it to our people.
*The Pasifika Film Festival runs from until Sunday February 26 Wellington's Embassy Theatre.
