Mark Hemetsberger, Radio Australia’s Marketing Strategist is with us in Tahiti sharing some of his views on the event in English…
28/01/2010 15:23
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Am I in the Pacific or in France?
Tahiti continues to enthral me at every opportunity.
This morning the Festival International du Film Oceanien commenced, with an opening ceremony - that apart from being swelteringly and stiflingly, humid and hot - would surely stand its own amongst many opening ceremonies.
I haven’t been to many opening ceremonies to be honest, normally I prefer to pretend I’m going and then wait and see how I feel on the night, and when the night arrives, quite often ‘doing my own thing’ tends to win out.
However, this was a ceremony that was different. It felt very French yet we were in the Pacific.
In the past, I have begrudgingly organised events.
Armed with personal experience, some of it quite recent, I found myself more than normal attuned to taking note of the logistical details of the event rather than the performers and the speeches.
The organisation was strongly centralised, evidenced by the continual stream of official event traffic between the main proceedings and the ‘command centre’ office.
How very French.
The official event organisers, easily spotted by their badges, looked like a line of worker ants.
I looked at the sky and thought it might rain.
Such was the impressive display of purpose by the organisers I was almost fooled into believing the allotted ceremony start time of 8am was actually going to happen.
Of course it didn’t.
These things rarely run according to their intended time frames and often it does appear that a meaningful relationship between ‘time’ and the many diverse and wonderful peoples inhabiting this vast expanse of ocean is often on rocky ground.
At about 8.33am however, the opening ceremony did eventually commence.
Full of colour, full of sounds, full of advertising banners and marketing stalls complete with the bored looking people that sit in them.
Photographers were wielding cameras that, had weapons of mass destruction been found, I am certain they would have had a remarkable resemblance to a 40cm long SLR.
These lensed weapons, were snapping at anything that moved, or was thinking about moving.
I am sure that I got snapped a handful of times as I moved forward in my seat to wipe the sweat away from my brow.
On one occasion, facing in the opposite direction, a cameraman detected my movement and in the flash of an eye swivelled around pointed and shot.
How was my movement detected? Had human sonar evolved in Tahiti?
Local radio and TV journalists were lining up interviews with anyone that could spell their name and would talk to them.
I seemed a good candidate and spoke to a few.
A lot of local influential people were in also in attendance.
The President of French Polynesia, Monsieur Gaston Tong Lang was there, as was the French Ambassador to Tahiti, Monsieur Adolphe Colrat, the Mayor of Papeete Michel Buillard, along with a handful of ministers, prominent business people, delegates, movie makers and school children.
Clearly FIFO is a big deal.
The more flowered wreaths hanging around ones neck tended to be a clear indication of where in the political pecking order one was.
I had none.
Not a single one of the many beautifully dressed ceremony girls had stepped forward to give me a flowered wreath, and even though I desperately wanted one, I felt embarrassed to ask.
I would have persevered with the heat generated from a kilogram of flowers around my neck just to be viewed with a level of importance at this important local event.
I felt like I was at a new school and had to start from scratch.
There was a lot going on.
In my mind, as well as in reality.
Perhaps the half litre of fluid I was sweating every 30 mins had begun to take its toll.
Have I mentioned its really really hot?
No. Really. It’s hot.
Un demarrage sur les chapeaux de roue
27/01/2010 06:43
Festival international du film océanien (23 janvier 2010)
Je suis en route pour Papeete et à quelques kilomètres de l’aéroport de Melbourne, le pneu arrière gauche de mon taxi explose. Après une embardée à gauche, une embardée à droite, des crissements de frein et des coups de klaxon, le chauffeur parvient à s’arrêter le long d’une glissière. Nous changeons la roue tandis que de monstrueux poids lourds nous frôlent les reins.
Pour une fois, j’échappe à la file d’attente devant les guichets d’embarquement pour la bonne raison que je suis le dernier à me présenter. L’avion décolle dans 20 minutes et j’ai du cambouis jusqu’aux coudes.
Enfin, la salle d’embarquement et dans l’avion à destination de Papeete via Auckland, la Polynésie est déjà très présente avec les visages des nombreux passagers maoris que j’ai failli faire attendre.
Et je pense au FIFO. Les films vont bien sûr se succéder, mais il y aura aussi les colloques, les ateliers, les rencontres, notamment numériques, avec le Te Honotua, ce câble qui reliera tout d’abord la Polynésie à Hawaï et peut-être par la suite à l’Australie et aux pays du Pacifique jusqu’à l’Amérique du Sud en passant par le Chili.
Il y aura aussi la TNT, cette chaîne numérique qui explosera sur les écrans, mais pour montrer quoi ? Quelle sera l’impact de toutes ces nouvelles pirogues numériques sur l’insularité, sur l’identité océanienne ?
Ah, il va y en avoir des discussions et des débats à ce FIFO. Des liens vont se créer, des émotions vont jaillir entre l’inquiétude de certains et l’enthousiasme d’autres.
Toutes les pirogues ont rendez-vous à la Maison de la Culture et c’est avec impatience que j’attends ces quelques jours ou les cultures et les technologies vont se rencontrer dans un même espace, une même case.
J’ai rouvert les yeux sur le sourire d’une dame maorie d’un certain âge ; une « mama », et je me suis demandé si elle y pensait au numérique.
Pierre Riant
L'affiche du 7e Festival International du Film documentaire Oceanien: un Papou regarde Paris a travers son prisme culturel.
Tahiti IS a paradise
27/01/2010 06:40
It really is.
Having been to a few supposed ‘Paradises’ over the years that haven’t quite lived up to the mark, I was feeling a little sceptical before arriving.
From a European / Western perspective Tahiti has for generations conjured up images of uninhibited sensuality, of rampant loose morals in mythical proportions.
When Louis-Anton de Bouganville returned to Paris after ‘discovering’ Tahiti in April 1786 (he was the second known European to arrive there, less than a year after British explorer Samuel Wallis had landed his scurvy ridden crew in June 1767), he set the social Parisian scene alight with tales of Venus like women in the form of celestial goddesses, dancing naked and requesting his men to have ‘liaisons with them’. So French.
Two and bit centuries later and the mythological paradise remains deeply entrenched in the Western psyche. Well, at least the Western male psyche.
So, unreservedly and unashamedly, I am happy to proclaim to the world that Tahiti - although not through a display of the characteristics that European ancestors described – has got me hooked.
It is simply stunning and it is simply a paradise. And it is really really hot by the way.
Starting tomorrow a selection of 42 Pacific made films (including Australia and New Zealand) will be shown as part of the Festival International du Film Oceanin.
It’s very exciting.
Most of the film makers have arrived at the hotel and I’ve just spent a day with this eclectic mix of French and English speaking film makers from across the Pacific.
We visited the exquisite Moreara Island – a short 25 minute ferry journey away from the capital, Papeete.
Mashed together with a group of people from diverse backgrounds and with only a single thread of commonality is always fun to watch.
Apart from the entertainment value of watching an Australian attempt to explain the need for water conservation to a French Pacific islander fearful of rising water can be an amusing way to spend the afternoon.
Not necessarily because the topic is so original or funny, but watching as these two culturally different people perform an eye and facial ballet in the attempt to communicate can be quite entertaining.
I understand why dance as a form of expression was invented and apparently liked. It’s easier than language.
Today I found it difficult not to burst out laughing for no apparent reason in the middle of a series of conversations which I had begun to over-hear but was not a part of.
Thankfully I managed to control my idiocy as I quickly surmised that laughing out loud randomly in the direction of another’s conversation, is probably not a great way to endear.
Further observation of this assorted mix permits me to continue with the human science experiment. I feel like David Attenborough.
Some of the film maker guests are flying solo and nervously introduce themselves and their film in a downplayed manner, and seem keen to fade away into the group background noise as they quietly murmur to anyone within earshot that this was the first movie they ever made…..
Other guests are travelling in packs. They are louder of course and as they have larger support groups and follow through their confident display accordingly, indicating this might not be the first film festival they’ve attended.
The festival officially starts tomorrow, and thus far I’ve simply met some of the ‘artistes’. The film creators.
Tomorrow begins the larger crowds, the media and a whole range of cocktail parties and organised events, including a soirée with the Tahitian President on one night, and an event hosted with the French Ambassador to Tahiti on another.
The next few days will either be:
a) Highly interesting
b) Highly entertaining
c) Amusing
d) Filled with intellectual arguments dominated by a bold few
e) Or all of the above
I’ll keep you posted, but at this stage of proceedings it’s looking likely that the easy option proposed by the most used letter in the English language is odds on favourite.
Mark Hemetsberger
Tahiti: J-1
22/01/2010 18:18
Dernières vérifications avant le départ. On bourre la valise avec 20 kg de matériel et de t-shirts siglés Radio Australie, sans oublier quelques bouquins sur la Polynésie française.
Pierre Riant, qui a bourlingué pendant des années sur le continent Pacifique, tente de m’apprendre quelques mots de tahitien. Ce n’est pas gagné. Faudra réviser dans l’avion. Que nous prenons demain samedi. La magie du décalage horaire nous fait arriver le même jour à Papeete, une heure avant, même.
C’est le privilège des médias: nous avons reçu en avant-première le DVD de deux documentaires courts programmés hors compétition par le FIFO cette année: “Mama bilong down under”, de Arthur Hane-Nou et Klinit Barry et “Levekuka Clay”, de Dilen Doiki.
Trois jeunes réalisateurs de Papouasie Nouvelle Guinée. Coup de coeur pour “Mama bilong down under”, le portrait d’une mère courage qui nourrit toute sa famille élargie en vendant des beignets sur le marché local.
Nous rencontrerons les trois réalisateurs mardi prochain en français dans l’édition de “24 heures dans le Pacifique”, et en anglais dans l’émission d’Isabelle Genoux et Clément Paligura, “In the loop“, en direct du FIFO bien sûr.
Caroline Lafargue
