Fifteen films from across the Pacific, including four from Tonga, screened at the second Nuku’alofa Film Fest held over two days on 19 and 20 October.

Patron of the film festival, HRH Crown Princess Sinaitakala Tuku’aho attended

There were two films directed by Tongan women. Tui Emma Gillies directed her film ‘Falevai Flava’ on the printing of Ngatu or Tapa in Falevai, Vava’u. Alice Lolohea directed a short documentary ‘Pukepuke ‘o Tonga on the preservation of Tonga.

The Nuku’alofa Film Fest is a newly established independent film festival which started in 2015 and aims to showcase locally produced films, artistic performances and documentaries and encourage local and aspiring film-makers to tell their stories.

President and Festival Director, Sisi’uno Helu said that after the inaugural festival last year, the idea was that the event would be biennial.

“But I had taken two films from our festival to the Pacific Film Festival in Australia and the ‘Aho’eitu film won the Breakthrough Award in 2015. There was also interaction and dialogue with other film festivals which inspired us to hold our event annually.”

She said that this year, the films screened are from “Guam, the Phillippines, Australia, New Caledonia, four from within Tonga, and the remainder from New Zealand but they portray topics very relevant to Tonga and also Samoa.

The feature film for the festival was a documentary ‘Cap Bocage’, directed by Jim Marbrook from New Zealand, about a village in New Caledonia that fought a mining company over polluting their water. Another feature short film the ‘Gambler’, directed by Andrew Scarano from Australia, was about an ex-footballer who fell into gambling.

Sisi'uno will be a judge at the Pasifika Film Fest in Australia on 2 November 2016.

Next month, the Nuku’alofa Film Fest plan to do post screening during the last week of November for high school students after exams.