2023 Mother Tongue Film Festival: Roots of, and Routes to, Home
Doors Open: 6:30 PM
Shaped through ancestral, historical, and contemporary migration, home within Oceania is rooted in place and defined by these routes. The three films within this program explore the ways communities in Papua New Guinea, Hawai‘i, and Aotearoa New Zealand are calling out the injustices of settler colonialism and resource extraction and asserting their sovereignty.
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Dodge the Bullet (Directed by Nigel Muganaua (Digital Story Box) | Music Video, Papua New Guinea, 2020, 5 min.)
Languages: Tok Pisin, English
Synopsis: Papua New Guinean hip-hop artist Sprigga Mek brings forth his unique style of “conscious rap” in his single, Dodge the Bullet, highlighting the highlighting inequality linked to resource extraction, unemployment, and rapid urbanization. With this call to action and an anthem for accountability, Sprigga Mek seeks to empower through music.
Like a Mighty Wave: A Maunakea Film (Directed by Mikey Inouye | Documentary Short, Hawai‘i, 2019, 15 min.)
Languages: English, Hawaiian
Synopsis: On Wednesday, July 17, 2019, a heavily armed police force arrested thirty-six Native Hawaiian kūpuna peacefully protecting Maunakea from desecration. The actions from that day sparked an international outcry and brought new life to the ongoing movement for Native Hawaiians’ rights for self-determination.
Whetū Mārama / Bright Star (Directed by Toby Mills & Aileen O’Sullivan | Documentary Feature, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2021, 93 min.)
Language: English
Synopsis: For Māori, the waka (canoe) is the underpinning of their culture. Wakas were once made from giant trees and used in conjunction with the Māori’s intricate knowledge of the stars to map their movements around the Pacific. For 600 years, these arts were lost, until the stars realigned and this wisdom rose in the hearts of Pacific Islanders across the region. Whetū Mārama: Bright Star is the story of Sir Hekenukumai Ngaiwi Puhipi, aka Hek Busby, and his significance for Māori in rekindling their wayfinding DNA and for all people in Aotearoa New Zealander in helping them reclaim their role as traditional star voyagers.
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The Mother Tongue Film Festival is a public program of Recovering Voices, a collaboration between Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and the Asian Pacific American Center.