FIFO film presentation of “Patutiki: The Guardians of Marquesan Tattoo,” Nov. 14

UH West Oʻahu students, faculty, and staff are invited to a screening of “Patutiki: The Guardians of Marquesan Tattoo,” a special film presentation by the International Festival of Oceania Documentary Films (FIFO).

The event is 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 14, at the UH West Oʻahu Academy for Creative Media theater and lanai. The screening will be followed by a Directors Talk Story and Q&A. To attend the event, register here by Tuesday, Nov. 7.

First-time feature filmmakers Heretu Hetahiotupa and Christophe Cordier delve audiences deeply into the ritual art of Marquesan tattoo, sharing its cultural and historical significance by re-enacting the past and challenging the present through a visually and acoustically immersive 55-minute documentary. 

About “Patutiki’:
Screened in the Polynesian language of the Marquesas and subtitled in French and English, “Patutiki” won the Audience Prize at Tahiti’s 2019 International Festival of Oceania Documentary Films’ (FIFO). Hoping to reach a larger audience, the filmmakers produced this English-language version: “Patutiki: The Guardians of Marquesan Tattoo.” Submitted to several international film festivals, focusing on indigenous documentary, the filmmakers strive to expose this fascinating spiritual perspective to a receptive global audience.

The Story:
The stories etched on their Polynesian skin document this micro-nation’s history. Unlike other Polynesian societies, Marquesans created a vocabulary and an art by which to tell their people’s story, their way of seeing the world, and human kind’s place in it. In 1920, 97% of their population was decimated, only 2000 survived. 

With tattoo declared illegal by church and state in the early 1900s, the last of the “black-skinned” Marquesan elders found clever ways to guard their dying people’s Polynesian history.

Witness how a remote Southern Pacific islander people rediscover and celebrate their nearly lost identity by uncovering the cultural puzzles left behind through “Patutiki,” the world’s first film directed, written, and produced by a native Marquesan.

Event sponsors are UH West O‘ahu’s Chancellor’s Office, Institute for Research and Engaged Scholarship, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Hawaiian/Pacific Studies, and Academy for Creative Media. Committee members are Lea Kinikini, Saili Sa’iliemanu Lilomaiava-Doktor, Sharla Hanaoka, Joe Mareko, Kaua Neumann, and Samantha Farinella.