DCP | 2024 | Miki Magasiva | New Zealand | 124 minutes | English
After the devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake kills the daughter of Samoan teacher Mareta Percival, she is plunged into grief and depression. Reluctantly, she finds herself at the doors of the rigidly conservative Pākehā private school St. Francis of Assisi College, where she is hired as a substitute teacher. At St. Francis, Mareta meets her students and begins to understand the many pressures, personal traumas, and insecurities they carry beneath their privileged upbringing. As she forms connections with them, she persuades Headmaster Alan Hubbard to allow her to start a school choir. Despite institutional resistance and personal setbacks, Mareta builds the “Assisi Singers” into a cohesive ensemble, and together they rise to the finals of the national Big Sing competition, culminating in a tear-jerking performance that reveals the students’ emotional growth and collective resilience through the tradition of Samoan pese (song) and siva (dance).
Please stay after the film for Pasifika refreshments and community.
Cosponsored by Yale University’s Native American Cultural Center, the Indigenous Peoples of Oceania at Yale, and Whitney Humanities Center
