“Tinā,” a movie focused on community and ʻohana, had its world premiere at the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival last year. Now, it is returning to the Islands to debut for larger audiences. It opens in theaters in Guam, American Samoa and Hawaiʻi on Thursday, Aug. 28. It has already been showing in New Zealand and Australia.
The 124-minute drama explores how the deadly Christchurch earthquake impacts Mareta Percival, who reluctantly becomes a substitute teacher at a private school, where she starts a choir and eventually transforms lives in New Zealand.
“I hope everybody takes somebody they love along to see it,” Miki Magasiva, its writer, director and producer, told Aloha State Daily. “Takes a sibling, takes a child, takes a parent, takes a grandparent, cousin, auntie, uncle, friend, somebody. Gives them a call and says, ʻLet’s go to the movies. Let's go and experience this together. Because there's nothing like having the sound of the theater — everything else blocked out — that helps you be immersed in the film and have that shared experience with somebody you love.’ … Just take your mum, go along to the movies, get some popcorn and a drink and have a good cry.”
“Tinā” is a Samoan word that translates as mother.
“It's what us Samoans refer to all of our inspirational mentors, much like you all will use ʻauntie’ over there,” Magasiva said. “It’s just a mark of respect. We don't just call our mothers that term. We call all of the women that we look at with reverence and respect [that], and we call them that out of the relationships that you formed, the guidance that they've shown us. Tinā is supposed to reflect all of the mothers in our lives, or the inspirational women in our lives, that have helped define who we are as individuals.”
Magasiva, who was born in Samoa and now lives in New Zealand, says his own life experiences inspired the story.
“They say you always write what you know, write who you are, and as you've seen in the film, it's very much a Samoan / New Zealand film in its themes, which is relevant to what it's like being a Samoan raised in New Zealand, but trying to have a more positive outlook on life, about community and coming together,” he said.
Magasiva was inspired to write the screenplay after watching video of a performance by the Westlake Choralation Choir.
The movie is dedicated to his brother, Pua, an actor in “Power Rangers,” who died in 2019, at 38 years old. The script explores topics such as cultural acceptance, parenthood and grief.
He wrote most of it in just a few months.
“There's a two-month period that I blocked off where I worked on it like I was going to work,” he said. “I would get up at six o'clock in the morning because those are my best hours to write. I would write all day. And get up and do it again the next day.”
Since hitting theaters in New Zealand and Australia, the film has inspired laughs and tears. Some of Magasiva’s favorite reactions are from his parents’ generation, who are proud to see music they listen to in theaters, he said.
“They've been dancing in the aisles,” Magasiva said. “They've been crying. They've been singing the songs — unabashedly singing the songs — in and amongst the crowd that they've watched it with.”
Some showings of the movie have brought three generations together, including grandparents, parents and grandchildren.
“You don't see that very often,” he said. “I love hearing those stories.”
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Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
