Details

Marianne “Mimi” George | Solomon Islands | 00:56:15 | 2020
English

Logline for the series:
We are the crew of Lata, the Polynesian culture-hero who built the first voyaging canoe and navigated across the Pacific. We use only ancient designs, materials, and methods, and we invite everyone to reconnect with ancestors and sustainable lifeways. Come join the crew of the real Moana!

Part 1. We, the Voyagers: Our Vaka (56 minutes 15 seconds)
We, Polynesian voyagers of Taumako, Solomon Islands, share our history, motivations, and skills, through story-telling, canoe building, and wayfinding. We recall our ancestors, who made the greatest human migration. We use only designs, materials, and methods of our culture-hero, Lata, who built the first voyaging canoe (vaka) and navigated to distant islands. After Europeans took over we became isolated and unsustainable. In 1996 Paramount Chief Kaveia, our most experienced navigator, led a new generation in planting gardens, feeding workers, making rope from plants, weaving and sewing sails, protecting our trees, adzing parts for voyaging canoes, and lashing them together. Kaveia also enlisted an anthropologist to help us make films. After Kaveia died in 2009, Chief Holani became our new Lata, and prepared us for an open ocean voyage. Our story of Lata teaches that everyone is welcome in Lata’s crew, and that we can avoid making key mistakes as we prepare to connect with long-lost family and new friends on faraway shores.

Co-directors
Heuionalani Wyeth
Jacob Penchansky

Cast
Simon Salopuka
Dixon Holland
Mimi George
Ambrose Miki

Writers
Marianne George
Heuionalani Wyeth
Jacob Penchansky
Dixon Wia Holland
Simon Teave Salopuka

Producers
Marianne “Mimi George
Heuionalani Wyeth
Jacob Penchansky
Dixon Wia Holland
Simon Salopuka