Highwater

Hawai’i Surf Movie Premier

Highwater Trailer

Surf film guru Dana Brown (Step Into Liquid) devotes an entire movie to Oahu’s North Shore in Highwater, an homage to surfing’s Superbowl held annually at the “Hawaiian church of surfing”.

Shot at the 2005 Triple Crown over 55 days , Highwater follows the men and women wave warriors at Pipeline and Waimea. Hawai’i surfers include Kalani Chapman, Carissa Moore, Poncho Sulllivan, Sunny Garcia, Rochelle Ballard and wunderkind John John Florence, at 13 the youngest finalist ever in the premier big wave series.

Brown premiered his nearly finished film (missing final audio mix, color correction and credits, with narration recorded that morning) to an appreciative crowd under the stars in the Ford Amphitheater at Los Angeles Film Festival 22 May 08.

The Brown dynasty was out in force with pioneer filmmaker dad Bruce Brown (Endless Summer) and grandchildren, who crewed for son Dana on the film.

Tahiti Doc Fest Entries

FIFO wants films

Festival Internationale du Film Documentaire Oceanien
6th Pacific International Documentary Film Festival
Papeete, Tahiti
27 Jan – 1 Feb 09
Deadline: 1 Oct 08

Documentaries about the Pacific region, made during the past three years, are eligible. Films compete for cash prizes, including Jury Grand Prize and Audience Prize.

2008 winners are: Horo’a, by Jacques Navarro-Novira (French Polynesia); Sacred Ground by Kim Mavromatis, documenting a fight to save Aboriginal burial grounds (Australia): Ben Lewis’s Blowing Up Paradise about French nuclear testing in the Pacific (Britain); My Brother Vinnie, Steven McGregor’s portrait of actor Aaron Pedersen’s bond with his intellectually disabled brother (Australia); The Latest Australian Trackers by Eric Ellena (France); and Peta Carey’s Lifting of the Makutu, about a family grappling with a rare genetic disorder (New Zealand).

Contact:
Pierre Ollivier, FIFO Director
organisation@fifotahiti.org
http://www.fifotahiti.org

Pacific Music Awards

Tuis to Scribe & Te Vaka

Pan-Pacific musicians Te Vaka and Samoan-kiwi rapper Scribe dominate Aotearoa’s 2008 Pacific Music Awards.

Scribe takes the Tui for Best Song and Best Male Artist with Say it Again from his new album Rhymebook.

11-piece Te Vaka won Best Group and Best Album for Olatia.

“Pacific music has been a trailblazer for race relations, social responsibility and expressing human joy in Aotearoa and the Pacific region,” says Pacific Music Awards Chair Rev. Mua Strickson-Pua.

Scribe: Say it Again

Scribe’s Say it Again music video showcases his cousin, R&B diva Tyra Hammond, in a retro tribute to kiwi 60s pop. The open features New Zealand TV icon Peter Sinclair from the classic music show C’mon.

Say it Again is produced by Auckland’s Zoomslide and directed by prolific kiwi music video maker Adam Jones.

Rain of the Children

Tuhoe Country Docu-drama

Kiwi director Vincent Ward (Map of the Human Heart, What Dreams May Come) revisits his 1978 documentary, about a Maori kuia, in his latest feature.

In Spring One Plants Alone was Ward’s second film – a verite portrait of Te Puhi, an 80 year-old woman caring for her schizophrenic adult son in rural Urewera.

30 years later Ward returns to the scene to re-envision her story as a cursed Tuhoe princess.

The 2008 version is a personal docu-drama, narrated by Ward, melding dramatic re-enactments with original footage.

The cast includes Once Were Warriors alumnae Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison and Taungaroa Emile.

Rain of the Children premiered at Sydney Film Festival.

Rain of the Children trailer

A Tale of the Tuhoe
TVNZ

could give Maori on both sides of the Tasman a new insight in to their past

Vincent Ward unveils latest long-term labour of love
New Zealand Herald

Australian-based Maori performed a passionate powhiri on the red carpet

Vincent Ward’s ghost story
Sunday Star Times

epic act of “director’s cut” reworking

Brown Pages

Check out the Brown Pages directory of indigenous media, arts and culture for actors, publishers, artists, filmmakers, TV producers and musicians.

The latest directory is out now, with contact info for Maori, Pacific and other indigenous talent in Aotearoa, the Pacific, Australia, Canada and America.

What began as a directory book in 1993 has become a regularly updated online database, accessible 24/7 and promoted worldwide.

Subscribers will have to pay from July 08 onwards, but listings are free. Web subscribers get a complimentary hard copy.

The Brown Pages is produced out of Aotearoa by Kara Paewai, Melissa Wikaire, Iulia Leilua and Sandra Kailahi.

London Native American Film Fest Seeks Films

Native Spirit Festival 2008
Film & Video Festival of the Indigenous Peoples of the Three Americas
London Oct 08
Deadline: 31 Aug 08

Call For Entries
Native American films come to screens around London this Spring at the second Native Spirit Festival, founded in 2007 by Mapuche artist Freddy Treuquíl to educate the British public about indigenous life and issues in the Americas.

Directors and Producers are invited to submit films on DVD, any year of production.

As severely under-represented people in the global film and media industries, the festival is seen as a much-needed platform to celebrate and explore indigenous life and demonstrate that although these communities are culturally diverse, they share common views and plights; above all, their unique spiritual relationship with the natural world and their struggle to maintain their cultural identity in the face of modernisation and the encroachment of mainstream western culture.”