From A Movie To A Movement

 

About three years ago, I found myself sitting in an edit room in New York City, writing and post producing a one-hour documentary for National Geographic, when an email popped up from a film director friend of mine from NZ, Mike Single. Mike and I had co-produced a film for PBS seven years prior, but hadn’t had the opportunity to work together on another, since. We lived on opposite sides of the planet, after all. Mike’s email described a new project he was asked to shoot and direct; an incredible feature-length documentary about a group of about 120 South Pacific Islanders who would, be sailing (and celestially navigating!) a fleet of Polynesian-style voyaging canoes (called vakas), equipped with solar panels, on a 20,000 mile journey across the Pacific in order to carry an environmental message about the ocean’s health to the world. 

“The story hasn’t been developed yet,” he told me. “But I’d like you to write it and work with me on it. Interested?”  There was absolutely no hesitation in my response. I was on board.

It wasn’t until I started delving into the research that I began to realize just how huge this project was – this was NOT your typical documentary. And this was NOT my typical “writing gig.” There were so many facets to it – the environmental thread, the spiritual, the physical, the cultural, the historical. . . How would I ever be able to weave together a story that captured everything this voyage embodied?  It seemed too big, too complex. And further, what do I know about the Pacific? I grew up in the Northeast. The Atlantic was “my” ocean. I began to feel like I was in a bit over my head.

And then I met Tua Pittman, the Master Navigator from the Cook Islands, who would soon become our main character and one of my dearest friends. We met in Auckland a month before the voyage began, and he told me his story. He explained where he came from, his connection to the ocean, and what it means to be a citizen – and steward — of the Pacific.  He talked to me about the importance of the canoe in South Pacific culture.  “We have a saying: ‘The canoe is our island, and the island is our canoe.’ It is not simply a vessel that moves us, the canoe is a movement of the people.”  As he spoke, I felt a calm wash over me and I began to understand. These different threads to the story were not at all separate, but rather so finely and intricately woven that they cannot be frayed. The cultural draws from the spiritual, which feeds the environmental — and ALL are steeped in the Ocean. 

It was then that I realized the only way to tell this story was to keep my voice out of it — a tough concession for a New Yorker!  But seriously, my role was to be a listener, a participant, a student.  Over the course of the next three years, I would spend time traveling with the Pacific Voyagers (as they would come to be known), asking questions, and learning from them — they are the storytellers.  As the canoes made their way across the Pacific, from New Zealand to Hawaii, California to Cocos Islands, the Galapagos to the Solomons, we uncovered a story as ancient as it is modern, as sacred as it is scientific. 

Most importantly, we came to see the canoe as a metaphor for the planet.  A place of limited resources, where you must rely on each other and work together to manage those resources sustainably in order to survive. And with that notion, the title of our film was born: Our Blue Canoe.  We are currently in the final stages of the edit.   

Here is the trailer:

Through the film (due to be released theatrically next year), the audience will come to relate to the ocean in all its power and fragility through the experience of these intrepid sailors. We’ll revel in the company of Blue Whales, and curse the trash floating on the swells. We’ll whisper prayers through the feral storms, and celebrate safe arrivals on remote and wild shores. The voyagers' journey becomes our journey.  And at the heart of their story is the notion that this ocean is not a barrier that separates our islands, our cultures, our nations and continents, but rather the bridge that links us all. 

Though the voyage (and filming) has ended, The Pacific Voyagers community continues to grow.  Nearly 8,000 people are followers on their Facebook page and we have  nearly 3,000 on Our Blue Canoe’s.  The PacificVoyagers Foundation is engaged in a number of educational and sustainability projects from a Food Sovereignty project, to the building of smaller solar powered vakas to be used for inter-island transport, to larger movements such as the Fossil Fuel Free Energy Production and the Organization of Fish Exporting Countries initiatives.

I could have never known three years ago where this would all take me. But when I first stepped onto the vaka, I felt something small shift in me and I knew it was the beginning of something transformative. What began as a “gig” has evolved into something deep, and rich, and personal. And not a day goes by that I don’t feel humbled and blessed to be a part of something so powerful.

I hope that everyone who sees the film (when it is released next year) will come to understand that these voyagers are not merely characters in a film, they have become our family, our friends, our mentors, our Navigators. And though I may have been hired to do a job – to shape a story — the truth is, it’s these beautiful, courageous, extraordinary people who are, in fact, shaping mine.

Follow Our Blue Canoe on facebook at: www.facebook.com/ourbluecanoethefilm

And the Pacific Voyagers at: www.facebook.com/pacificvoyager

Photos courtesy of The Pacific Voyagers Foundation.  Copyright 2013.