AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): The first ‘Islands in the World Oceania International Film Festival’ had its official opening in Suva tonight. This is the first ever international film festival hosted by Fiji.
Forty six short films and documentaries will be screened before the film bonanza ends on Saturday. The inaugural film festival is hosted by the University of South Pacific at the Japan ICT Centre and is expected to be an annual event, according to Ana Laqeretabua, a public relations consultant.
Different side
The intention of the festival is “to bring international films to Fiji that would otherwise never hit the mainstream”, said festival director Larry Thomas.
A similar message was voiced by Hawai'ian film director Andrew Williamson, who has produced and directed The Land of EB, one of the films that will be screened at the festival.
The festival’s aim is not only to reach a wider audience, but to portray a message through all the films which will be screened, he told FBC News.
“The Land of EB” is about a family from the Marshall Islands who migrated to Hawai'i and had difficulties settling down in their new country.
The opening films of the festival were Ochre and Ink and Children of the Bomb (original title: Aux enfants de la bombe). Ochre and Ink is a short film about the meeting between an Aboriginal and a Chinese artist, whereas Children of the Bomb recounts the experiences of Bernard Ista, who was an engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission and filmed all nuclear tests from Mororua and Fangataufa between 1960 and 1995.
You can see a trailer of the film here.
Tuna fishing
Another feature films to be screened is Canning Paradise, which details how the global tuna industry has affected the Pacific.
“It looks at the tuna industry, or fishing industry, in the region – and how some places it has been overfished. And it also looks at the communities who are suffering because of the effects of globalisation," Thomas said in a Fiji Television interview, which was shared on the film festival’s facebook page.
According to the synopsis of Canning Paradise, the number of tuna fished has increased ten-fold, from an annual catch of 400 000 tons in the 1950s to close to four million today.
Non-commercial films
The ‘Islands in the World Oceania International Film Festival’ features non-commercial films that are not normally screened in Fiji.
"This is really a wonderful opportunity for Fiji to start to experience and enjoy films that don't often make it to the commercial cinema and see that there is a huge variety of films that are fascinating and amazing and tell stories that we can learn from and be educated and inspired," Thomas said.
He is very happy with the names the festival has managed to attract:
"It is not everyday that we in Fiji get the opportunity to learn from the best like Alfred Lot who has worked with great actors like Jet Li and I would like to encourage all those with an interest in film and documentary to take advantage of the opportunity.”
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Daniel Drageset
