Vai is an expressive anthology of vignettes by First Nations Pasifika women spanning seven countries. Each episode tells a day in the life of Vai in different stages of her life each played by an Indigenous woman. A seven year old in Fiji, an eleven year old in Tonga, a teenage schoolgirl in Kuki Airani (the Cook Islands), a New Zealand-born Samoan uni student struggling to make ends meet, a young mother fighting against purse seine fishing, a woman reconnecting with her ancestors in ceremony, a grandmother farewelling her granddaughter in Niue, and finally a great-grandmother showing her newly born great-granddaughter the sacred site of their family in Aotearoa.
Each vignette was shot in a single day and appears as a single continuous shot, that one filmmaker describes as symbolising the continuation and development of Pasifika culture, which was perceived as static by Western lenses. As well as shining a light on the rarely heard voices and stories of the Pacific Islands, let alone Pacific Islander women, Vai reveals the endemic struggles currently faced by our neighbour ocean countries – overfishing, access to water, healthcare, education, and the process of decolonisation. As a non-Indigenous and white Australian, Vai humbled me beyond measure.
The film is beautifully shot and even more beautifully acted, and its anthology style, rather than separating each tale, binds together the story more tightly so that the ending seems like a close for all the Vai’s we’ve seen so far. And instead of a close, Vai ends with a continuation – of the ancestral line, of women, of the stories and cultures of the Pacific Islands.
Kena