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- The Salt Lake Film Society is helping host a Pacific Island film festival starting Tuesday, May 20.
- The festival features films from Utah, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti, Fiji and French Polynesia.
SALT LAKE CITY — Pacific Island filmmakers will be the focus of a festival that starts on Tuesday.
The Salt Lake Film Society, Utah Pacific Island Film Series and Pacific Island Knowledge 2 Action Resources are partnering to host Māsima: Pacific Islands Film Festival, now in its fifth year. The featured films will be screened Tuesday, May 20; Wednesday, May 21; and Thursday, May 22 at Broadway Centre Cinemas in Salt Lake City.
"This year's festival features a robust lineup of films exploring themes of identity, resistance, family and connection — all through the lens of creators and voices from the Pacific," according to a press release for the event. The varied films come from Utah, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti, Fiji and French Polynesia.
Four guest filmmakers, all based in Utah, will take part in a talk on the first night of the festival, Tuesday — Anna Kongaika, Ka'eo Drumright, Olivia-Vaimoana Unalotoa and Pingi Moli. Their works are featured in that evening's screenings. The four filmmakers' showings "reflect a variety of experiences that we know will speak to those not just in our Pacific Island community but those outside of it as well," Pacific Island Knowledge 2 Action Resources said in a Facebook post.
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Multicultural Utah
Looking for more news about the different cultures that call Utah home? Visit our Multicultural Utah section for more stories, events and features.Māsima in the festival title comes from the word in some Pasifika dialects that means "salt," a reference to Salt Lake City and "the salt of the ocean that connects our Pacific Island and stories," said Lauren To'omalatai, ofmPacific Island Knowledge 2 Action Resources, the festival programmer. The Salt Lake Film Society, she went on, "doesn't just purport to care about diverse stories but has made an active effort to bring those stories and storytellers to the forefront."
Passes for the festival — the first in the United States to focus on filmmakers with roots in the Pacific Islands — cost $15 while individual tickets go for $5.
