Film program: Vai (dir. Nicole Whippy, ‘Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki, Matasila Freshwater, Amberley Jo Aumua, Mīria George, Marina Alofagia McCartney, Dianna Fuemana, and Becs Arahanga)

Join La Trobe Art Institute for a film screening program in our auditorium, featuring films that contextualise and extend the concerns of the exhibition, Storytelling Liberation. A different film will be screened each week across four Sundays during the exhibition run.

Vai, directed by Nicole Whippy, ‘Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki, Matasila Freshwater, Amberley Jo Aumua, Mīria George, Marina Alofagia McCartney, Dianna Fuemana, and Becs Arahanga

88min (2019)

Sunday April 6, 2 pm

“We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood” so reads an epigraph by Teresia Teaiwa to opens the film Vai. Made by nine female Pacific filmmakers, filmed in seven different Pacific countries: Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Kuki Airani (Cook Islands), Samoa, Niue and Aotearoa (New Zealand), Vai, meaning water, follows the lifelong journey of girl.

This program accompanies Alex Martinis Roe’s exhibition Storytelling Liberation. Intended as invitation, resource and instrument, the exhibition seeks to foster international anti-colonial and feminist alliances by sharing tools for telling stories about social justice movements.

Storytelling Liberation was made in collaboration with Katerina Teaiwa, ASKI Contemporary Greek Social History Archives, Gladys Kalichini, Alexandra Juhasz, Andrea Ortega and Diana Betanzos.