“An ocean of knowledge:” Vai’s transnational feminist alliances

ABSTRACT

Using transnational feminist media theories, theories of Fourth Cinema, and Pacific Islander epistemology, this paper argues that the film Vai (2019) builds transnational feminist alliances among the peoples of the Pacific Islands. Made by a collective of nine women from across the Pacific, the film follows the life of Vai, a Pasifika woman who struggles to maintain connections to her family, culture and land. I argue that Indigenous media, particularly media made by Indigenous women, plays a powerful role in battles for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.

KEYWORDS:

• Fourth Cinema
• Pacific Islands
• Indigenous media
• transnational feminist media
• sovereignty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The term “Pasifika” has been much-debated as a category of regional identity. According to Courtney Wilson (2013) it is a pan-Pacific descriptor used as a substitute for “Pacific Islanders” or “Pacific peoples.” I use it here to follow the filmmakers’ practice and that of the New Zealand Film Commission.

2. Samoan filmmaker Sima Urale’s 2008 film, Apron Strings, focuses on the culture clash between a Pakeha (White European) New Zealander and her Indian and Vietnamese immigrant neighbors.

3. I borrow this term from legal scholar Kimberlé Crensahw (1989).

4. For more information about these movements (see Ariel Zambelich and Cassi Alexandra 2016); “Idle No More”; and Standing Above the Clouds (Jalena Keane-Lee 2020).

5. Barclay’s theory is rooted in this framework: First Cinema is American (or Hollywood) cinema, Second Cinema is art house cinema, and Third Cinema is the cinema of the Third World (Barclay 2003a). Third Cinema is specifically associated with 1960s Latin-American filmmakers Glauber Rocha, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino (See Paul Willemen and Jim Pines 1989).

6. The term “Kanaka Maoli” is the preferred form of self-identification for the Indigenous peoples of the area now known as the state of Hawai´i (See Noelani Goodyear-Ka’ōpua 2014).

7. This practice is an important feature of Fourth Cinema, as Barclay (2003b) has described. His vision of the Fourth Cinema film event is a communal gathering where people watch the film, eat a meal together and generally share each other’s company. He suggests even that filmmakers might pay people to come to the film, arrange transportation for them on a bus, prepare the meal for them and make the occasion into a kind of hui (gathering). This idea, he says, fits into the tradition of hospitality and gift-giving; rather than asking the audience to go to the film, you bring the film to them.

8. Mita was widely known for her pioneering film Patu! which documented the 1981 tour of New Zealand by the South African rugby team, the Springboks, and Mauri (1988), only the second fictional feature directed by a Māori woman (See NZ On Screen). A documentary about her work, Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen, premiered in 2019, directed by her youngest son, Heperi Mita.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer L. Gauthier

Dr. Jennifer L. Gauthier is professor of Media and Culture at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia, where she teaches courses in rhetoric, media studies, and gender studies and coordinates the minor in film studies. She is a two-time Fulbright Award winner and her research on Indigenous media and cultural policy has appeared in national and international journals and edited collections. Her current book project examines the media work of Indigenous women in Canada. E-mail: [email protected]