Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

The documentary Loimata, The Sweetest Tears has won the Grand Prix du Jury at Tahiti’s FIFO (Festival International du Film Documentaire Océanien).

Produced and written by senior lecturer in communication studies Jim Marbrook at Auckland University of Technology and his sister Anna Marbrook (who directed the film), it debuted at Whānau Mārama: New Zealand International Film Festival 2020, where it received outstanding reviews and box office sell-outs.

The documentary also made the stuff.co.nz top 10 films of 2020 list. AUT students formed part of the crew for some of the Auckland portions of the shoot.

At the prizegiving ceremony, jury member Julia Overton, a leading figure in Australian film and television, described Loimata as “a film that was really well directed . . . on an
important subject: childhood trauma”.

She added: “Our congratulations to the whole team who presented this family’s story with so much compassion.”

Jury member Doc Edge director Alex Lee said: “The film’s narrative is superbly told, giving us a personal connection with the subject, Ema. We are taken into her world where she confronts issues of culture, family, the tradition of wayfaring, sexual abuse, identity, life and death.

“While her mortality is urgent and pressing, the film enables us to pause and reflect as Ema navigates these issue. This is an excellent example of skilled filmmaking and a feature-length theatrical Pasifika documentary which the world needs to view, indicative of the treasure trove of content of our region rarely seen and funded internationally.”

Healing pathway
Director/producer Anna Marbrook said: “We are so thrilled and honoured to be among such an amazing selection of films in competition. This award is a tribute to the protagonist of the film Lilo Ema Siope and her dedication in forging a healing pathway for her extraordinary family – a pathway deeply rooted in her culture, history and philosophy.

“Tahiti is hugely significant in voyaging kaupapa so to win an award there dignifies both our film and Ema’s legacy as a voyaging captain and waka builder.”

Producer Jim Marbrook said: “This is another vital stepping stone that helps us take our film out into the world and also deeper into the Pacific region. We set out to make a documentary that was both cinematic and intimate and the reactions to the screenings and this prize have vindicated our creative choices.

“It was a complex movie to produce because the material was so sensitive.”

Loimata had its television debut on Waitangi Day on Māori Television and is available to watch on their on demand website for the next two months.

Loimata, The Sweetest Tears takes the viewer on an emotional healing journey with extraordinary ocean-going waka captain, Lilo Ema Siope.

The film is an intimate exploration of a family shattered by shame working courageously to liberate themselves from the shackles of the past. A journey of courage, tears, laughter and above all, unconditional love.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Host Zoe Larsen Cumming had much to discuss on a new documentary, the exquisitely made Loimata – The Sweetest Tears, which was launched last Saturday to a full house at the ASB Waterfront Theatre as part of the international Whanau Marama film festival.

She asked Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Sri Krishnamurthi what made the documentary so special on today’s Pacific Media Centre – Southern Cross segment of Radio 95bFM’s The Wire.

The documentary is about a female master waka builder, navigator and sailor Lilo Ema Siope who was born in Taihape and spent her troubled growing-up years in South Auckland.

LISTEN: Southern Cross on the Pacific Media Centre’s Soundcloud

Abused she was, but she found her true calling on and in the waka.

It remains important to tell these stories of our Kiwi-born Pacific families who find a way to connect with their cultures and to bring richness in diversity to the New Zealand way of life.

What makes this documentary special are the bonds that develop between the Palagi film-making family of Anna and Jim Marbrook, a Pacific media Centre associate, and the Siope aiga who took the Marbrooks into their heart.

Also discussed on the radio programme was climate change and the dangers of relying on sustainable ecotourism,  and the dramatic rise in covid-19 cases in Papua New Guinea where cases have jumped by a record 23 to 62.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

DOCUMENTARY: By Sri Krishnamurthi, who talks to Jim Marbrook about the making of Loimata – The Sweetest Tears.

Loimata isn’t just a true story of one of the Pacific’s great waka builders and sailors that has been captured in a stirring and visually gripping and poignant documentary.

It is also about the friendship between the aiga (family) of Ema Siope, a Samoan-born Kiwi and master waka builder and the palagi (pākehā) Marbrook family that they took into their hearts and made a magical documentary – that is relevant in this 21st century New Zealand.

Anna Marbrook, who has directed more than 150 episodes of Shortland Street and made documentaries focused on Pacific themes such Te Mana o te Moana – The Pacific Voyagers, and reality series Waka Warriors brings to life the tale of waka builder and captain Lilo Ema Siope who died in 2018 from cancer.

READ MORE: Loimata – Why this Kiwi doco will move you in ways you might not see coming

It is brave realistic tale of tragedy and redemption and the return of the Siope family to Samoa and what it meant to Ema captured with gentleness, tears and laughter by Siope’s friend Anna Marbrook.

The documentary also caught the full attention of Jim Marbrook, a senior film lecturer at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and himself a documentary maker including feature-length documentaries on speed chess maestros (2003 award-winner Dark Horse), psychiatric hospitals (Mental Notes) and environmental issues in New Caledonia (Cap Bocage).

“It was an idea of me talking about the idea making a family project, a family making a film about a family,” says Jim Marbrook about the documentary and the two families that become intertwined like the strands of a seafarer’s rope.

There is little doubt that the ties that bind Pacific families is very difficult to break into, particularly for outsiders and that this palagi Marbrook family managed to do just that was what makes this documentary that little bit extra magical because they give you the rare insight into the Siope family.

The ties binding two families
“So Anna and I have both known the Siope family for years, I have known the family for six years and Anna has known the family for the same number of years,” explains Jim, who is also a research associate and advisory board member of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre.

“We both knew them from different contacts; Anna knew Ema and I knew Fetaui and his son Joshua, and he is currently a master’s student at AUT, so we both knew the family pretty well,” Jim says of the ties that bind the two families.

“So we both knew the family were pretty special so it was obvious to me that this was a very interesting family.

“But I hadn’t met Ema until Anna introduced me, so Anna and Ema decided to start doing the movie and Ema asked me to come on board.

“I’ve done a lot of work before on mental health and mental health films and about communities who were suffering trauma.

“I was a bit hesitant about diving into such a deep and personal story; the moment I met Ema and she asked me on board …I thought she was a pretty interesting woman,” he says wistfully.

But what is it that made it so personal for him?

Films that offer solutions
“I’m a really big believer in doing films that offer solutions,” he says.

“Personally, all of my work has been about people who are proactive and seeking change.

“I guess my personal ethos as a documentary maker is, can I make a film that encourages change, can I present the public that helps them understand difficult situations and provides them not only the portrait of a really interesting person but a way out of that situation,” he says.

“When I heard Ema’s story I realised that here was a person who had used identification with waka culture, with tradition and navigation to change her world view, to get out of a situation where she did live some very difficult times in her youth and those times involved abuse,” he says thoughtfully.

“So, the moment I met Ema and the moment I understood what the story was about I realised, ‘hey this is a film that has the potential to encourage people to grow and change’.”
But the puzzling thing, I suppose, was how the aiga came to accept the Marbrooks as part of the larger family.

“I think both Anna and I have worked in all sorts of multicultural communities, so firstly I think we’ve developed a way of working alongside people. I think the very idea of working alongside each other was important.” he says.

“And I think if we hadn’t known the family for so long that work would have been impossible.

‘They kind of came to us’
“The fact is we didn’t come in and pitch the film to them. They kind of came to us and Ema came to Anna and then Ema came to me. That makes a huge difference in terms of the way you’re planning a project that becomes a partnership,” he says with a finality on the subject.

And how was Ema Siope as a person?

Here was a six-foot person, twice as strong as a man and an Amazon.

She was gender fluid and she was someone who knew what she wanted, and people followed her like the captain she was.

He recalls the time when he with camera in hand tried to keep up with her in Samoa.

“When we went to Samoa she was in a quite a bit of pain but there she was, picking up a machete in one hand and hibiscus flower in the other, chopping her way through the undergrowth and that was classic Ema.”

It is the redemptive tale of the waka builder and skipper Ema Siope’s final years, the stunning Loimata – The Sweetest Tears is a chronicle of journeys – journeys of migration, spirituality, voyaging, healing and coming home.

Confronting intergenerational trauma
Confronting intergenerational trauma head on, the Siope family returns to their homeland of Sāmoa.

For Ema’s father, this is his first time back to his birthplace since leaving in 1959. The result is a poignant yet tender story of a family’s unconditional love for each other, and a commitment to becoming whole again.

Ema was born and raised in South Auckland as a child of Samoan migrants. She captained both the Haunui Waka Hourua and Aotearoa One, both of which belong to the great waka master Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr.

Ema’s key role in the revival of voyaging saw her become an important mentor for future generations of voyagers

Jim Marbrook has only one wish – that everyone of Samoan heritage and the whole of New Zealand turns out to watch it.

• Loimata – The Sweetest Tears is having its world premiere in cinema in the Whanau Marama/New Zealand International Film Festival at ASB Waterfront Theatre in Auckland, on Saturday, July 25, at 7.00pm. It will then screen in select cinemas and venues across the country. It has already sold out for its first screenings in Auckland and Wellington. It will also play as part of the hybrid online festival, from August 2-8.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Michael Andrew and Sri Krishnamurthi

The true story of one of the Pacific’s great waka builders and sailor has been captured in a stirring and visually gripping documentary.

Loimata: The Sweetest Tears follows the final years of Ema Siope, a Samoan born kiwi who endured a tumultuous past to reconnect with her roots across the Pacific by mastering the seafaring traditions of her ancestors.

Six-feet tall and immensely strong, Siope was one of the few woman in the world who could captain and build an ocean going waka hourua – a traditional twin-hulled sailing canoe in which she completed many ocean voyages.

READ MORE: Indigenous Pacific knowledge to help save the ocean

WATCH: Loimata crowd funding video on Vimeo

Siope passed away in August this year, several years after she was diagnosed with cancer. The film starts at the time of diagnosis, following her to the rural New Zealand town of Taihape, where her parents migrated in the 1960s and then to Samoa to heal old wounds in her family’s past.

Directed by close friend Anna Marbrook, the initially self-funded film has received support from private donors, NZ On Air, and Maori Television.

However, in order to complete and screen the film in the next six months, a crowd funding campaign has been launched to raise the necessary funds.

Marbrook’s brother and co-producer, AUT Screen Production Lecturer Jim Marbrook says the title of the film can be translated as “tears”.

“The title of the film is Loimata: The Sweetest Tears. Because for all of us there’s this idea that there are tears of sadness, sad moments, but also tears of reconnection,” he says.

Reconnection is certainly a crucial theme of the film, which explores the distance and separation from culture so many in the Pacific diaspora experience after migrating to New Zealand.

“You know, you move from Samoa to New Zealand in the early 60s. So you’re living that kind of world, it’s disconnected from your Samoan culture, from where you grew up. And through that disconnection, Emma kind of lost her way a little bit,” Jim Marbrook says.

After living rough on the streets, embroiled in drugs and substance abuse, Siope sought to reconnect with her native culture, eventually leading to her prodigious waka building and ocean voyages back home.

“Loimata also refers to a piece of land, family land,” Jim Marbrook says.

“It’s up in Savai’i, where Ema’s family and her grandmother come from. So it’s a very important part of the film, that return to Loimata.”

Marbrook says it is much a story about Ema’s unique qualities as it is about her personal journey.

“This is a story that has to be told because it’s not only a story of reconnecting. It’s a story of showing leadership qualities and joining this waka culture.”

Eventually becoming a master craftswoman and mentor, Siope was initially schooled by waka-building legend Sir Hector Busby and taught to sail by Haunui captain Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr, both of whom are involved in the Tuia 250 Commemorations.

A characteristically discreet person who preferred the background, Siope approached Anna Marbrook about the story for the film two years ago.

Jim Marbrook says this was Siope’s way of finally announcing, “I’ve got things to say.”

While the film will likely be destined for overseas film festivals, Marbrook sees it opening in New Zealand and showing on the big screen.

Called a proudly Pacific story of transformation and healing, the film uses an array of captivating shots and video techniques to capture verdant vistas of Samoa and the inner world of the New Zealand waka community.

At a time when issues like disconnection, identity and the vital importance of the Pacific are growing in prominence, this film is likely to provide a soothing balance, while honouring the life and times of great woman whose wake will be felt for years to come.

• Details of the crowdfunding campaign can be found at https://www.boosted.org.nz/projects/loimata

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Hele Ikimotu

The president of the Samoa Voyaging Society (SVS), Schannel van Dijken, says humans cannot thrive without looking after our landscapes and seascapes.

As part of his work with the SVS, van Dijken and his team of volunteers sail across the Pacific on their waka, the Gaualofa – promoting the old tradition of navigating.

“Our mission is to revive the lost art of traditional navigation and voyaging but also to take this knowledge and stewardship responsibilities that we used to have – take these to the communities,” he says.

He also speaks of the challenges around climate change and the need to raise awareness about the issue.

This 4 minute video was made by Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom as part of the Pacific Media Centre’s Bearing Witness climate assignment under the postgraduate International Journalism Project at Auckland University of Technology.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz