Similarly to the same period last year, from Tuesday 20th to Friday the 23rd November, the Alliance Francaise organised a Documentary Film Festival. The festival of four evenings was organised in themes (first contact, reconciliation, artistic creation, environment) with two films being shown each evening, the first being on the Pacific region and the second from another region (Brazil, South Africa, Tanzania, …)
Through these projections the first aim was for spectators to reflect on political and social issues: the Aboriginal struggle in Australia in finding "self respect" through art ("Mr Pattern"), the reconciliation question on the Island of Bougainville (‘Breaking bows and arrows") or even the fate of the Indo-Fijian farmers ( "Bittersweet hope") . Through the viewing of these films together with the films from other regions, our second objective was to open a window towards other regions and other worlds: the country-continent of Brazil its Amazonian Forest at risks ("Pirinop") or even Africa in the midst of colossal political, social and environmental challenges ("The Reconciliation Commission, "Darwin’s Nightmare").

The selected films, of which most were award winning films, offered coherent and original documentary writings, which diverged sensitively from television formatting while captivating the attention of the public of about 250 spectators coming to the Alliance Francaise to discover these films.

You’ll find below the program:

Tuesday 20 November: "Theme: First contact"
Introduction: Eric Galmard, Alliance Française
6.45pm: "First contact" (set in PNG, 1983, 52 min) directed by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson
First Prize, Festival du Réel, Paris, 1983
Nominated, Best Documentary Film, Oscar Awards, 1984

In the 1930s, Australian miners lead by Michael Leahy and his brothers made their first trek into the New Guinea highlands. This was the first contact between white people and highlanders. Compelling footage of the initial meetings is combined with interviews of the surviving brothers and highlanders who recall the impressions and shock of those long ago events. The first film of a classic trilogy with two follow-up films, "Joe Leahy’s Neighbors" and "Black Harvest"

8.00pm: "Pïrinop, my first contact", directed by Mari Corrêa and Karané Ikpeng (Brazil, 2007, 52 min)
Forty years ago, on the banks of the Rio Jatoba in Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, the Ikpeng tribe of Indian warriors, with a reputation for being aggressive, met white men for the first time. This film gives the Ikpeng themselves an opportunity to relate this decisive and irreversible moment in their lives. In this version with the roles reversed, we are the strangers with our customs and culture.

Wednesday 21 November "Theme: Reconciliation"
Introduction: Mrs Mosmi Bhim, Communication and Advocacy Officer, Citizen’s Constitutional Forum
6.45pm: "Breaking bows and arrows" (set in PNG, 2001, 52 min), directed by Ellenor Cox
First Prize, United Nation Peace Award for Best Television, 2002

On the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, victims and perpetrators are coming together in traditionally based reconciliation ceremonies after a decade long civil war left the community bitterly divided. In the largest reconciliation ceremony yet to take, BBA follows fighters who have killed each others families as they come together to break bows and arrows in a traditional gesture of peace. On a more personal journey Francis Boisivere retrieves the bones of a chief he killed, ceremonially returning them to the bereaved wife, Immaculate Atorevi. He seeks forgiveness, she a release from the hatred she harbours.??

7.45pm: "The Truth and Reconciliation Commission" (South Africa, 1999, 138 min), directed by André Van In
First Prize, Documentary Film Category, European Film Award, 1999

Achieving a real democratic society, is the concern of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" that was put in place in South Africa by Nelson Mandela. Under the leadership on his lordship Desmond Tutu, this commission will invite during a little over a year victims, executioners, and witness of apartheid to show the truth of the past. The filmmaker was given permission to follow the whole unbelievable process that must restructure the whole nation. The film highlights the "collective character" of the commission confronted with ethical, political, and philosophical questions as well as characters, victims and executioners, linked by a common history.

Thursday 22 November "Theme: Art Creation/Transformation
Introduction by Dr David Wish-Wilson, School of Arts, language and media, USP, Australian novelist (to be confirmed)
6.45pm: "Mr Patterns" (Australia, 2004, 56 min), directed by Catriona Mc Kenzie
Jury Special Prize, Pacific International Documentary Film Festival of Tahiti, 2007

In the 1970s, when Geoff Bardon took up a teacher's post in Papunya, Central Australia, he was appalled by the living conditions of local aborigines, the alcoholism, the decline of their culture. With his encouragement, elders began painting their Dreamtime stories on the school walls, beginning a period of astonishing creativity – and one man's remarkable crusade.

8.00pm: "Brass Unbound" (Netherlands, 1993, 106 min), directed by Johan Van Der Keuken
Johan Van Der Keuken travels across the globe to show how traditional European brass instruments have been utilized by formerly colonized natives for the purposes of playing their own indigenous music. Providing the viewer with some extraordinary musical sounds as well as a depiction of the day-to-day lives of the musicians, 'Brass Unbound' is a joyous chronicling of influence and resistance.

Friday 23 November "Theme: Man & Environment"
Introduction by Larry Thomas, SPC Media Centre Coordinator, documentary film director
6.45pm: "Bittersweet hope" (Fiji, 2003, 52 min), directed by Larry Thomas

Bittersweet hope is the story of sugar in Fiji. The sugar industry is the oldest surviving industry in Fiji but in the last ten to fifteen years it has begun to flounder due to the expiry of land leases. But the sugar industry is not only about sugar. It’s also about the history of the Indo-Fijian people who were first brought to Fiji as indentured labourers to work on the sugar cane plantation…

8.00pm: "Darwin’s nightmare" (set in Tanzania, 2004, 107 min) directed by Hubert Sauper
Nominated, Best Documentary Film, Oscar Awards, 2005
First Prize, Documentary Film category, European Film Award, 2005

In the 1960s, the Nile Perch is introduced into Lake Victoria in Tanzania. The voracious predator quickly decimates all the other species in the lake. A lucrative export industry springs up around this ecological disaster as Northern markets flock to buy the white flesh of the huge fish. But above the lake, hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes lumber to and fro daily apparently plying a totally different trade: weapons. Fishermen, politicians, Russian pilots, prostitutes and manufacturers all get caught up in an incredible drama. The shores of the world’s largest tropical lake are now the scene of globalisation’s worst nightmare.

This year during the « Lire en fête » operation, the Alliance Française de Suva in association with the Pacific Writers Forum and the support of the Fiji Times, organised a national competition of literary creation based on the theme « Home »:

Below is an extract of the presentation text for the competition:

Home means many things to many people. It does not always simply mean a place we go to eat and sleep and go to work or school from. It can be an island that one makes a journey to when one can afford to go there. Or a village in the mountains that one makes the obligatory trip to on the back of a two-ton carrier riding roughshod over gravel and river crossings. It can be the settlement among cane farms where one grew up kicking a ball around and catching fish from receding rivers. It can be the top floor of a low cost housing flat in Toorak from where one catches glimpses of a the sea and where one grows up sharing time in pool halls and a Suva Fiji English.

This was a competition that was open to all residents of the Fiji Islands. There were two categories: verse (poetry) and prose (short fiction and plays). The texts could be written in English, Fijian, Hindi Fijian or French. In total, more than 40 people participated in this competition.

The Lire en Fête evening brought together 70 people and was held at the Alliance Française de Suva on Thursday the 25th of October. A Prize giving ceremony was organized by the panel (composed notably of member writers of the Pacific Writers Forum) and the winning texts were exhibited and read at this occasion.

Last September, the AFS had the pleasure of hosting the New Caledonia Circus School tour. The school founded in the early 1990’s bringing together over 120 students is directed by Isabelle Giang, an international artist from Vietnam. The professionals of the Nouméa New Circus Company "Nez à nez" are of course involved in the life of the School.

The show was the fruit of creative workshops showcasing the best 7 teenagers of the School. It was a Circus adaptation of some French and Hollywood grand cinema classics.

At the Suva Civic Center and in Lautoka at the University of Fiji, about three and a half thousand spectators enjoyed their performances: three put on for schools and one for the general public in each city.

The New Caledonian theatre group ‘Pacifique et Compagnie’, staged a dramatic production at the FIT campus in Raiwai on Thursday 26 July.

The play "M", an educative drama addressing social issues facing youths in today’s Pacific community, was organized by the Alliance Française targeting teenagers. Since the play had a strong educative content, there were three shows staged in the morning for invited students from Gospel High, Yat-Sen Secondary, Suva Grammar and Marist Brothers’ High schools, with a total of 200 in attendance. A public show was staged in the evening attracting 250 people.

Once again, this year the Alliance Française organized a two-day photo workshop conducted by professional photographer, Adi Nacola of Grasskirts.

Saturday 28th July was the first day of the workshop with its theme "Not Just a Man’s Game" attended by 25 out of the 40 applicants, short-listed participants. After an intensive technical theory class, the participants were given a disposal camera each (compliments of Caines Jannif) to put into practice what they had learnt focusing on women’s rugby. The participants were directed to Marist Brothers’ High School grounds whereby the Fijiana rugby team amongst other women rugby teams was playing.

The second day of the workshop, Saturday 4th August, was assessment day. Participants were assessed on photographs taken and a selective number of photos were to be exhibited during the Hibiscus Festival from 14th to 25th August.

After five years, the Alliance Française revived the "French Film Festival".

After the launching of the festival at Village Six Cinema on Wednesday 11th July, a week of English subtitled French films were screened from the 12th till 18th July in different venues (AF Indoor & Outdoor, FIT - School of Arts, Culture & Design, USP main campus – N111 Hall). Movies ranged from cartoons to comedies, drama, cop movies, and war epics together with five special "arty" films portraying female characters. The festival attracted over 1,700 people, both children & adults.

The 20th Anniversary celebration took place on Friday 29 June included a program of Art, Music and Dance. Thirty-five local artists exhibited works based on the theme "Roots in Search of Waters". In this exhibition, the artists were able to seduce the public with their vibrant creativity and the diversity of the material used, from painting to carving, sculpture to 3D, photography to screen printing, and more. Three winners were announced in the evening with Ben Fong’s sculpture piece taking the 3rd prize; Letila Mitchell’s painting awarded the 2nd prize and the winning piece a painting by Rusiate Lali. Later in the evening, the audience saw a brilliant dance performance by Letila Mitchell followed traditional Fijian songs with contemporary twists performed by Talei Burns and Tom Mawi. The celebration was a great success with more 300 people present.

 

In June, the Alliance Française de Suva organized the Fiji Music Fest. For the first time this event took place within several days. Free concerts were organized simultaneously on the night of Thursday, 21st June in several renowned places of Suva’s downtown; Fiji Museum, Sukuna Park, Holiday Inn, Bowling Club, JJ’s, Defence Club, Golden Dragon, Traps Bar & O’Reilly’s. This showed the original spirit of "La fête de la Musique", which for more than 20 years has become a worldwide musical event.

From Monday 25th till Thursday 28th, a series of concerts took place and the great finale on Saturday 30th with the now traditional "Fiji Music Day". The day started with the "Vocalist Talent Quest" followed by multi-cultural shows and performances by local choir professional bands ending with a high note by New Caledonian group "Mexem". Overall approximately 5000 people participated.

The Alliance Française invited the New Caledonian Nyan Dance Company to come to Fiji for the second time as its first tour in 2003 was a great success.

Nyan Dance Company together with the Suva-based Oceania Dance Theatre put on "When Night Falls" at the Museum: It ran for three nights aiming to give the general public a new perspective of the Suva Museum.

Friday night, 1st June, with more than 200 people attending, featured two shows at the Oceania Centre, USP. "Silence & Aids" was performed by the Oceania Dance Theatre to raise awareness on the issue of Aids and "The Journey" performed by the Nyan Dance Company focused on the traditional Melanesian concept of life and death.

On Thursday 24th May, the Pacific Office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), in partnership with the Alliance Française, screened an Academy Award-winning documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" warning about climate change and especially global warming.

Almost 100 people were present at the outdoor screening at the Alliance Française courtyard.

On Wednesday 25th April, the Pacific Regional Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in conjunction with the Alliance Française de Suva launched the book, a compilation of recommendations of the UN Human Rights treaty bodies to the countries of the Pacific; "Advancing the Implementation of Human Rights in the Pacific".

This was followed by the launching of the new OHCHR website and the screening of "Struggling for a Better Life: Squatters in Fiji" a documentary film directed by Larry Thomas and produced by the Citizens’ Constitutional Forum (CCF). Sixty-five people were present.

On Wednesday 4th April, the Alliance Française organized a Poetry Night together with an Exhibition on "Words & Flowers" by Mrs. Ariana Faucon. This was followed by the launching of the book "My Fiji" (a.k.a. "Noqu Viti" & "Mes Fidjis"), a collection of poems (in French, translated into English) by Roger Lesgards.

"Words and Flowers" was based on interactions between pictures of flowers and extracts of poems (in French and translated into English). Photomontage (with flowers from Fiji) and poetry readings were also included.

With two collections of poems already published at Le cherche-Midi publishing house, "Gulps of Dawn" and "Orbiting Bracelets" the book "My Fiji" gives us Robert Lesgards’ intimate vision of Fiji.

The exhibition attracting 85 people including those who visited during the week, ended on Friday 13 April.

On the occasion of the Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Treaty of Rome which marked the birth of the European Union on 25th March 1957, the Alliance Française in partnership with the Delegation of the European Commission in the Pacific screened five movies from the six founding countries which signed the Rome treaties: Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands. The main theme dealt with the handing down one’s culture values.

The week’s screening started on Monday 26th and ended on Friday 30th March attracted more than 300 people.

March 20th is "Francophone Day", a day celebrated worldwide by French speakers sharing their various cultures. This is commonly practised in French-speaking countries.

Here in Fiji, the Alliance Française, under the patronage of His Excellency the French Ambassador, Jean-François Bouffandeau, invited French Nationals and French-speaking citizens to a celebration with French songs programme performed by Talei Burns and a French guest star, Charlotte Friedli. The evening attracted over 200 people including patrons of the Alliance Française.

As in the past, the daytime program was hosted for students studying French in High Schools. About a hundred students from Yat-Sen Secondary and Suva Grammar schools participated in French related activities interviewing French-speaking people who were present and watching short films.

The Pacific Arts Alliance (PacAA) with the support of the Alliance Française de Suva, organized a pre-exhibition "Activate Viti" at the Alliance Française exhibition hall from 23rd – 27th February.

The exhibition featured works from artists of Fiji and Rotuma who later took part in the Celebrate Pasifika Festival held in Auckland during March. This popular festival focused on contemporary Pacific art attracting thousands of people and hundreds of participants from all over the Pacific.
Attended by approximately 300 people over the 5 days exhibition, the main initiative of the pre-exhibition was to allow the participants from Fiji and Rotuma to showcase their works locally before the main event. Artworks displayed were by Ben Fong (sculpture), Carson Young (mixed-media), Seniloli Tora (mixed-media), Makrau Ragafuata (weaving), Samu Cabe (design), Harry Tivaknoa (design) and Akanisi Smith (design).

Date: Wednesday 12 November.
Where: Alliance française
When: 7.30 pm
Directed by Hubert Sauper (2003, 1H47min, English)Some time in the 1960's, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the world.
Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest catch in exchange for their southbound cargo… Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the continent. This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots.
Admission: Free.

Where: Alliance Française, Suva
When: 4 pm
A film by Marcel Ocelot (French language with English subtitle)
Based on a traditional West African folk tale, the film tells the story of the 10 cm tall Kirikou, a small boys who delivers himself from his mother’s womb to emerge walking and talking. Kirikou undertakes a perilous journey in order to discover the secret of the evil sorceress, who has cursed his village, eating up the men-folk and drying up the spring.

Pour le proche avenir, nous souhaitons d’abord développer la formule du 21 juin en organisant davantage de concerts extérieurs en partenariat avec la ville de Suva pour donner un aspect encore plus festif à l’opération, et ensuite et surtout étendre la fête de la musique à la côte Ouest zone touristique de Nadi-Lautoka) où nous venons d’ouvrir une annexe. Enfin, nous souhaitons renforcer les pratiques amateurs en développant à l’occasion de la fête des concours de musique (voire de composition musicale) destinés en priorité aux jeunes.
 
Un grand merci à nos sponsors sans lesquels cette opération aurait été impossible: l’Ambassade de France bien sûr et aussi le Département de la Culture du gouvernement fidjien, Total, Western Union, Coca Cola, le Fiji Times et les radios LegendFM, FM 96, et Viti FM, l’hôtel Five Princes pour citer les principaux.

Après le grand succès de sa tournée à Fidji en 2003, la compagnie de danse "Nyan" basée à Nouméa a été invitée pour la deuxième fois par l’Alliance Française en mai 2007. En collaboration avec la compagnie de danse "Oceania Danse Theatre" basé à Suva, Nyan a présenté un spectacle intitulé "Quand la nuit tombe" au musée de Suva. Le spectacle a été proposé pendant 3 soirées consécutives avec l’objectif de faire redécouvrir le musée sous un angle "différent" au public de Suva. Par ailleurs, le vendredi 1er juin, au cours d’un spectacle qui a attiré plus de 200 personnes à l’Oceania Centre, à l’Université du pacifique Sud, chacune des deux compagnies a présenté son dernier travail : la compagnie de l’Oceania Center Dance Theater et son chorégraphe Allan Alo ont proposé une performance autour de la thématique du Sida, et des tabous qui encore aujourd’hui subsistent dans les sociétés du Pacifique en matière de discours sur le sexe et la vie sexuelle.