Mark Hemetsberger, Radio Australia’s Marketing Strategist is with us in Tahiti sharing some of his views on the event in English…
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.
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