Contributed by Benjamin Wheeler
The USP-based RARAMA Film Festival will open to the public in the first week of October, providing screenings of Fijian made movies throughout the wider RARAMA Art Festival, made possible by sponsorship from BRED Bank Fiji, and partners and patrons from across the local community.
The selection of films reflects Fiji’s diverse identities and personal and collective histories, featuring styles and genres that range from documentary to fiction, from real time to animation.
Premiering at the screenings will be Meli Tuqota’s Soli Bula, which has been selected for film festivals around the world, but has yet to be screened here in Fiji.
The film imagines a modern Fiji free of the effects of colonialism, and has been lauded in festivals across the United States and New Zealand.
Here, it headlines the RARAMA Film Festival, which aims to spotlight those working creatively in Fiji to produce cinematic content, often with only the bare minimum of technology and little to no training. What shines through is a desire to create narratives, a reflection of Fiji’s vital tradition of oral storytelling. The width and breadth of these stories is a compelling reflection of the complexity of modern Fijian identity and culture.
“We need more storytellers from our corner of the Pacific,” say Mr Tuqota. “As technology progresses, filmmaking tools are becoming cheaper via better phones, learning is now easier with video tutorials online, and more people are having access to both. With this, I hope that by seeing Soli Bula and other local films in the RARAMA festival, Fijians will be inspired. If a Fijian can make this, so can they.”
With films from directors Epi Vuruna, Regina Vaka’uta, Clarence Dass, Fabian Randerath, Daniel Veitata, Reave Nasilasila and Esekia Qio, these tales of Fijian life range from the true story of the longest serving peanut seller in Fiji, to the fantastic fable of The Mountain and The Moon, with further films that explore the tension between traditional and modern notions of identity in 2022, and the effects of the COVID pandemic restrictions.
Excited to present 60 minutes of homegrown Fijian Filmmaking as part of the Rarama Art Festival 2022.
Event Details:
“Our aim is to get anyone interested in film – whether it be writing, acting, cinematography and camera work, directing, editing, or producing – together in the same place to talk FIJI MOVIES” says film festival producer and film enthusiast Benjamin Wheeler.
Screenings will be held at the Performance Space on the USP Laucala Bay Campus from 5pm on Friday 7th and Saturday 8th October, with post-screening discussions focusing on how to create your own movies, how to understand cinematic language, and how to make contacts in the industry.
The afternoon of Friday the 7th October will also see a RARAMA acting workshop on campus from 2pm, encouraging those interested in learning more to meet with others who share the same passion, and be guided by more experienced performers. The final screening will take place from 5pm on Thursday 13th October, shortly before the festival closes.
The final weekend will see prizes awarded for Most Popular Film (voted by audience members) and the Critic’s Choice for Innovation, based on a panel assessing the film’s creativity, cultural value and technical prowess.
RARAMA, an iTaukei word that means “a light in the darkness” itself calls to mind the experience of sitting in the shadows and watching a film, which flickers into life before our very eyes. But more importantly, RARAMA symbolises a new day, after the struggles of the past two years for the Fijian arts scene in general.
It is hoped that the Fijian film industry, already telling its cinematic stories on the small screen, will break new ground in the next few years, as festivals such as this, Film Fiji’s recent International and KULA Short Film Festival, and the forthcoming second Suva Human Rights Film Festival create spaces where filmmakers and film lovers can congregate to use films to create talanoa, and plan to make their own movies, that tell their own stories.
The RARAMA ART FESTIVAL will run from October 1st to October 15th at the Oceania Centre, USP Laucala Campus.
The Film Festival screenings are from 5pm on the 7th, 8th and 13th of October at the Performance Space, USP Laucala Campus as follows:
- Friday October 7th – Fijian Animated Movies
- Saturday October 8th – Fijian Low Budget, No Budget Filmmaking
- Thursday October 13th – Meet The Professionals
FREE entry, of course… art is for everyone!
For more on the film festival please contact Ben Wheeler at bentsku.wheeler@gmail.com
To enquire about the acting workshop on October 7th please message raramaartfestival@gmail.com.
