Rarotonga is set to host a digital capacity-building and filmmaking project called Film Raro2.

Originally delivered in 2013, Film Raro2 is back from June to August 2024, thanks to the funding from the European Union via the ACP-EU Enhancing Capacity for the Sustainability of Cultural and Creative Industries in the Pacific Project (CCIP). The project provides support to artists and cultural producers from across the Pacific region.

Pasifika storyteller and cultural sustainability entrepreneur Stan Wolfgramm is the executive producer of Film Raro2.

Wolfgramm is holding a special session tomorrow, Thursday, May 9, at Te Ara Museum in Muri from 5pm to 6pm to explain “what the heck is Film Raro and why is it back”.

In a statement, Wolfgramm said, “today the Pacific is dealing with a second coming of colonisation through high-speed internet. The digital world allows everyone and anyone to invent narratives on all things Pacific. It erodes for us what is authentic”.

Film Raro2 is an initiative to capacity build and empower Pacific storytellers to tell their own digital stories and at the same time be the global conduit to share what Pacific stories are, with international filmmakers.

“The deeper the loss the more it hurts and the more it hurts the more people will stand for something better. We don’t want to stop the world from moving forward but we do want to take control of our story’s narrative, to tell our own story,” explained Wolfgramm. 

According to a statement, Film Raro2 has launched its online call for entries to engage filmmakers and audiences around the globe. It is now taking entries to its “Pacific Paradise Film Challenge” to bring, all expenses paid, up to six film crews from around the world to Rarotonga to share knowledge and expertise in the process of making short films produced by locals.

“Anyone can enter. What producers are looking for are good stories,” the statement said.

“Despite pockets of disruption worldwide, the Pacific is still a major media headliner with climate change and geopolitics. But often hidden beneath the jostling powers speaking for the Pacific region, are the real voices of Pacific people whose ancestors first populated the world’s largest ocean.

“At stake for them is more than superpower issues and climate disasters, at stake for them is the essence of who they are as they face the loss of their identity, their languages, their history, and their culture.

“For some citizens of the world, a blank page is acceptable but not for Pacific communities whose culture connects them to ancestral lines, lands, seas, and a perspective of living in the past, present, and future.”