At the end of the 18th century, hundreds of Indian sailors, known as lascars, worked amongst European settlers in Aotearoa New Zealand - often under the gruesome working conditions of seal hunting gangs. The story follows a lascar, Dasa, who has been abandoned on the coast of Aotearoa NZ by the East India Company, alongside his sealing gang. When Dasa finds himself in the middle of a conflict between his abusive British superior and two Māori traders, he is faced with a choice: bend the knee or take a stand.
Based on the treatment of Pacific Island families during the New Zealand Dawn Raids of the 1970’s, this short is an intimate look into a police raid, as told through the eyes of a young girl Losa and her father Lupematasila.
In the course of a long, slow take over Funafuti, both drought and floods appear in a constant uninterrupted rhythm. The state of flux between both type of events is reflected in the places and actions of the inhabitants making the island’s extremes seem familiar: the air is riven with waiting and suspension. The island of Funafuti, in the archipelago of Tuvalu, for some years now has become the stage for a unique phenomenon. Due to the unnatural warming of the sea, saltwater seeps into the subsoil bubbling up through the porous terrain provoking floods which put the future of life on this island at risk.
