Cinema of Samoa

Samoa's first feature film, The Orator (O Le Tulafale), was released in 2011. Shot and set in Samoa, in the Samoan language, it has a Samoan cast. It was produced with financial support from the Samoan government, in the hopes of showcasing Samoan culture to an international audience, and of promoting Samoa as a tourist destination.[1]

Before this, Samoa had only produced short films. Tusi Tamasese, the writer and director of The Orator, had previously written and directed the short film Sacred Spaces (Va Tapuia), which was screened in 2010 at the New Zealand International Film Festival, then at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto and the Hawaii International Film Festival.[2]

Samoa has only one cinema, the Magik cinema, owned by Maposua Rudolf Keil. The screening of films there is subject to censorship, and foreign films may be banned, in accordance with the Film Act 1978, for undermining the Christian faith of viewers. Both The Da Vinci Code and Milk have been banned from screening in Samoa's cinema, the latter for being "inappropriate and contradictory to Christian beliefs and Samoan culture".[3][4]

  1. ^ "First ever Samoan film wraps up". Television New Zealand. 22 January 2011. Archived from the original on 24 January 2011. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  2. ^ "Samoan Feature Film First" (Press release). New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 11 October 2010. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013.
  3. ^ "Samoa bans 'Milk' film". ABC Radio Australia. 30 April 2009. Archived from the original on 19 February 2012.
  4. ^ "Samoa's government censor bans Da Vinci Code film". RNZ. 21 May 2006. Retrieved 7 December 2023.