THE

STRONGEST VOICE

COMES FROM THE

HEART

THE

STRONGEST VOICE

COMES FROM THE

HEART

WWW.THEORATORMOVIE.CO.NZ

IN CINEMAS OCTOBER 6IN CINEMAS OCTOBER 6

ASIA PACIFICSCREEN AWARDS

IN COMPETITION 2011

BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

SELECTED 2011

Marginalised at the outskirts of the village, Saili (Fiaula Sagote) lives quietly with his wife Vaaiga (Tausili Pushparaj) and her teenage daughter Litia (Salamasina Mataia), until her brother Poto (Ioata Tanielu) arrives unexpectedly and demands she return to her family, ending 17 years of banishment.

With his neighbours encroaching on his land and his family threatened, Saili is forced to defy expectations and discover the depth and strength of his love for his wife and family.

Set deep on the lush Samoan island of Upolu,The Orator tells of a love woven by fate, parted by an unforgiving past, to be restored with courage. It draws on universal themes of love, honour and forgiveness in a fresh and evocative glimpse into a world never before seen in cinema.

M (contains violence and offensive language) 110 minutes

Wellington based writer and director Tusi Tamasese returned home to Samoa, bringing experienced New Zealand crew to work with his local cast and crew to

shoot The Orator, his first feature film.

IN CINEMAS OCTOBER 6

“The Orator is one of those rare films that captures you and fully envelopes you from its very first few shots. This not by the means of luring exoticism and trite sensationalism, but because of the secure, restrained and aptly rigorous mastery of direction and editing that exudes from each and every sequence and frame of the film.

Then, when the stakes at play in the narrative are fully (and very skillfully) put into place, one can’t help but admire the maturity of director Tamasese’s storytelling talent - one that never feels manipulative, and seamlessly draws you into an increasingly compelling and overly touching drama. Further to this, The Orator is a film that introduces the viewer to a people and its culture without ever casting the easily seductive bait of exoticism, but instead presenting everyday life and culturally specific habits as a given, in a way that sometimes feels close to (the best of) documentary filmmaking. The Orator is no doubt one of this year’s great cinematic discoveries, but added to that, to me it also feels like a marvelous and touching labor of love, one that, for the beauty and emotions it offers you, makes you feel indebted to director Tamasese.”

Paolo Bertolin - Programmer (SE Asia), Venice Film Festival