Director Anna Marbrook honours the last voyage of the great waka maker, sailor and mentor Ema Siope, whose journeys between Aotearoa and Sāmoa in search of healing, and her family’s reckoning with systemic abuse, are powerfully documented.
A stirring and visually gripping documentary… honouring the life and times of a great woman whose wake will be felt for years to come.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2020
LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears 2020
LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears is having its World Premiere in cinema at ASB Waterfront Theatre in Auckland, on Saturday 25 July at 7.00PM. See here for details & tickets.
This film is screening in select cinemas and venues across the country. See here for details.
The redemptive tale of waka builder and captain Lilo Ema Siope’s final years, the stunning LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears is a chronicle of journeys – journeys of migration, spirituality, voyaging, healing and coming home. Confronting intergenerational trauma head on, the Siope family returns to their homeland of Sāmoa. For Ema’s father, this is his first time back to his birthplace since leaving in 1959. The result is a poignant yet tender story of a family’s unconditional love for each other, and a commitment to becoming whole again.
Ema was born and raised in South Auckland as a child of Samoan migrants. She captained both the Haunui Waka Hourua and Aotearoa One, both of which belong to the great waka master Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr. Ema’s key role in the revival of voyaging saw her become an important mentor for future generations of voyagers.
Directed by Ema’s friend Anna Marbrook, the project developed alongside the pair’s friendship while spending time together on the waka. LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears builds on Marbrook’s previous documentary works which highlight both the resurgence of voyaging and the silencing of its history by colonisation, while extending a raw and stirring tribute to an extraordinary truth seeker. — Lana Lopesi
About the Filmmaker
Anna Marbrook comes from an extensive theatre and live performance background. Her factual on-screen work, which focuses on Pacific themes, includes the 10-part Waka Warriors series, the Real Pasifik series and the feature-length documentary Te Mana o te Moana: The Pacific Voyagers.
GET HELP
This film contains themes and conversations about sexual and familial abuse.
If you need help some New Zealand resources are here.
Pasifika resources are here.