About.
Company
New Zealand International Film Festival
Duration
94 minutes
Advisory
M Sexual abuse themes
New Zealand/Sāmoa 2020
In English and Samoan, with English subtitles
WORLD PREMIERE
Director Anna Marbrook honours the last voyage of the great waka maker, sailor and mentor Ema Siope, whose journeys between Aotearoa and Sāmoa in search of healing, and her family’s reckoning with systemic abuse, are powerfully documented.
The redemptive tale of waka builder and captain Lilo Ema Siope’s final years, the stunning LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears is a chronicle of journeys – journeys of migration, spirituality, voyaging, healing and coming home. Confronting intergenerational trauma head on, the Siope family returns to their homeland of Sāmoa. For Ema’s father, this is his first time back to his birthplace since leaving in 1959. The result is a poignant yet tender story of a family’s unconditional love for each other, and a commitment to becoming whole again.
Ema was born and raised in South Auckland as a child of Samoan migrants. She captained both the Haunui Waka Hourua and Aotearoa One, both of which belong to the great waka master Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr. Ema’s key role in the revival of voyaging saw her become an important mentor for future generations of voyagers.
Directed by Ema’s friend Anna Marbrook, the project developed alongside the pair’s friendship while spending time together on the waka. LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears builds on Marbrook’s previous documentary works which highlight both the resurgence of voyaging and the silencing of its history by colonisation, while extending a raw and stirring tribute to an extraordinary truth seeker. — Lana Lopesi
Aotearoa films presented in association with Resene.
Credits
Anna Marbrook
Director
Anna Marbrook, Jim Marbrook
Producers
Dr Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni, Dame Gaylene Preston
Executive Producers
Dr Ai’iloilo Elise Puni, Dr Leulua’iali’i Laumua Tunufa’i
Faufautua
Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr
Tohunga Ahurewa
James Eruera
Tohunga tārai waka
Anna Marbrook, Jim Marbrook
Screenplay
Jess Charlton
Cinematographer
Malcolm Clarke
Editor
Matthew Suttor
Music
With
Lilo Ema Siope
Gallery.
Book
Tickets.
Tickets.
Adult $18.50
Student $15.50
Senior $12.50
Multi-Trip Pass $77.50
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