Empowering Oceanic Voices: Francophone Film Festivals and Visual Autonomy

In ‘The Pacific on Screens: From Representation to Reappropriation’ Jessica De Largy Healy and Eric Wittersheim highlight the Pacific’s unique role in world cinema, spanning documentaries, animation, and fiction films. The first section of this chapter will explore the historical context and limited regional cinematic production in the Pacific region. The second part will focus on the current situation. While it may be premature to speak of a distinct Francophone Oceanian cinema, audiovisual production in the Pacific has experienced an unprecedented boom over the past twenty years. This growth has been supported by a network of festivals, including the Festival International du Film Océanien (FIFO) in Tahiti, Ânûû-rû âboro (Festival International du Cinéma des Peuples Pondimié) in New Caledonia, the ‘Festival du cinéma de La Foa’, and the Festival Rochefort Pacifique. These festivals serve not only as platforms to encourage the local film industry and make stories from Oceania visible but also as modes of social action. Additionally, the chapter will consider the inherent tension between cinema as both an art form and an industry, with its commercial and global constraints and the goals of an emerging local film industry.