Te Kuhane o te Tupuna
A grandfather and a girl travel from the most remote island in the world, Easter Island, in search of Mana, the sacred power of their ancestors.
- Filmmaker(s)
- Leonardo Pakarati
- Paula Rossetti
- Category
- Full-Length Film
- Subject Matter
- History, Family
- Featured In
- Deep Waters
- PIC Exchange
This documentary film is a journey from Easter Island to London, in search of the lost Moai Hoa Haka Nanaʻia, a statue of significant cultural importance. It explores the social and political landscape of the island of Rapanui as the people attempt to claim back what is rightfully theirs: their land and a lava-rock image of tremendous presence, representing one of the world's most extraordinary cosmological views.
Leonardo Pakarati - DirectorRapa Nui (Easter island) by origin, he was born in 1967. He lived his first childhood in Easter Island and then moved to Santiago to complete his studies. In 1992 he graduated in Audiovisual Communications and Film Directing in the ARCOS University in Santiago de Chile. In 1992 he worked as photography assistant to Bob Sacha, a photographer of the National Geographic. In 1993 he was invited to work in the long feature film “Rapa Nui”, produced by Kevin Costner and Tig Production, as the Making Off cameraman and as the film’s Still Man. Since 1993 he has been a local producer of a great number of audiovisual productions, television programmes and TV spots. In 1999 he founded the first TV channel from Easter Island: Channel 13 Mata o te Rapa Nui, where he was the Director and Programming Director as well. The same year, he created his own producing company, MAHATUA PRODUCCIONES, which offers audiovisual services to the Rapa Nui community, like institutional videos, TV spots and education programmes.
He has made two documentary films about “Tapati”, the biggest traditional feast in Easter Island. Between 2009 and 2011, he worked as the local producer of the “Rapa Nui Film Fest”, a film festival that takes place in Easter Island. In this context he directed the short film “Ka oho koe”. In 2010 he created the first newspaper in Easter Island, “El Correo del Moai”, of which he is the director until now. He is the press correspondent for TV channels like Channel 13, TVN, Chilevisión and CNN Chile. In 2011 he got the CORFO Fund for Filmmaking and, in 2014, he got the Audiovisual Fund granted by the National Council for Culture and Arts, for the documentary film “Te Kuhane o te Tupuna”, of which he is the director.
Paula Rossetti: Production Executive
Paul has a Degree of History, is a poet, artist and Yoga teacher. She has lived on Easter Island since
1980 and has conducted research on certain aspects of Rapa Nui culture about to which she made
publications related to wood carving. She has been recognized for her literary works in short
stories and poems in various contests.She is also an editor of the newspaper El Correo de Moai and has engravings in exhibitions. In recent years she's made incursions into photography, with her photographs being exhibited and recognized for their artistic quality as of a cultural rescue nature, and appearing in some documentary films.
