Experiencing Interruptions?

Te Pito o Te Henua

Logline:
An Indigenous community on the most remote island in the world prepares to host its most important annual celebration, and reinforce deep connections to their culture, language and land.

Synopsis:
“Te Pito o Te Henua” (The Navel of the World) tells the story of the community behind Rapa Nui’s largest and most colorful annual Indigenous celebration, the Tāpati Rapa Nui Festival. Honoring ancient rites and competitions, Rapa Nui families participate in nine days of athletic feats, cultural demonstrations and ceremonies paying respect to the land, water and other natural beings of the island. They also crown a Queen to represent her people for a year throughout Polynesia and on the world stage.
The film traces the journey of 19-year-old candidate Vaitiare and her family as they join work to earn her the crown and represent this small but well-known island as its people fight for increased autonomy and recognition on the world stage. Through intimate character portraits, behind-the-curtain moments and heartfelt musical performances, “Te Pito o Te Henua” reveals the true meaning of Tāpati and the deep connections the Rapa Nui share with their lands and waters.

  • Martin Kingman
    Director
  • Nils Cowan
    Director
  • Irene “Veri” Teave Tuki
    Producer
  • Gina Pakarati
    Producer
  • Nils Cowan
    Producer
  • Bryan Gunnar Cole
    Senior Producer
  • Tracy Rector
    Executive Producer
  • Martin Kingman
    Director of Photography
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Genres:
    Indigenous, Environmental, guardianship, climate, culture, language
  • Runtime:
    29 minutes 55 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 14, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    100,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Chile
  • Country of Filming:
    Chile
  • Language:
    Other, Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Martin Kingman, Nils Cowan

Martin Kingman:
Documentarian Martin Kingman was born near Macas, Ecuador, between the eastern side of the Andes and the northwestern edge of the Amazon basin. As a child, his parents worked as part of a growing social movement to establish strong local Indigenous governments to provide autonomy and land protection. Drawn to the waters of the many rivers snaking throughout the region, he became a strong swimmer and was named to the Ecuadorian Olympic swim team in his youth. He also became enamored with photography and followed his older brother, nature photographer Santiago Kingman, into the animal and human communities of the area.

In the early 2010s he gave up swimming and decided to pursue visual storytelling full time. He enrolled in writing and filmmaking courses at the Universidad de Las Americas, and then the INCINE Institute in Quito. Since graduating, Martin has dedicated himself to partnering with the indigenous peoples of Ecuador and Peru, bringing to life for audiences around the world the thriving cultures of the Waorani, Siona, and Achuar Nations, among others. He has shot and directed dozens of films of different lengths as well as impactful ad campaigns, including recent PSAs that helped pass the historic vote to ban oil exploration in Indigenous-held Yasuni National Park.

Nils Cowan:

Nils Cowan is a documentary producer/writer with twenty years of experience working on award-winning original features and shorts for diverse audiences. Born and raised in Calgary, Canada, trained in the documentary industries of New York and DC, and now a leader in the thriving film scene of the Pacific Northwest, Nils’ work has focused on uplifting and amplifying underrepresented stories and perspectives. He currently lives with his wife and two kids in Issaquah, Coast Salish Territory, Washington.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

For many schoolchildren, especially those who grew up in the west, the mythic “Easter Island” and its stone “heads” is a visceral memory from history class. Pictures of carvings and petroglyphs taken from the remote island, and stories of the “fierce warrior clans” who lived there and competed for power told of an otherworldly place, always frozen in the past. Missing from those narratives, in addition to the true name of the island, was the incredible ingenuity and complexity of the Rapa Nui culture, its attachment across vast ocean networks to other Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific, the brutal trauma and land degradation that started the moment Dutch Navigators set foot on the island they had “discovered”, and any sense whatsoever of the power, spirit and ongoing cultural and environmental preservation work of the modern Rapa Nui.
From the moment we began meeting with filmmakers and producers from the island more than two years ago, it was clear that the story we wanted to collectively tell was one that had been tried many times before – the story of their most important outward-facing cultural moment, the annual Tāpati Rapa Nui Festival. Across decades of TV specials, hosted archaeology series, and sports drink-funded competition shows, none of these specials had managed to properly capture the family and community story at the heart of the festival. A product of deep collaboration, Te Pito o Te Henua (The Navel of the World, a common self-given nickname for the island), is our shared effort to show the joy and unity of Tāpati, and how this work translates to self-determination, land and ocean guardianship, and cultural revitalization among youth.