FIFO Hawaiʻi 2025: “Te Puna Ora (The Source of Life)”

Film screening
Thursday, December 11, 2025
6-9 p.m.
Location: Atherton Hālau
Free Admission

Program Timeline
5:30 p.m. Doors open
6:00 p.m. Screening of “Te Puna Ora”
7:30 p.m. Q&A with filmmakers

Created in 2004 in Tahiti, French Polynesia, FIFO: The International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival aims to promote Oceania and make it visible through documentary films. In the context of rampant globalization, its ambition is to bring the voice of the peoples and cultures of Oceania beyond its shores and to make it heard in Oceania and on the media scene. Finally, it aims to promote Oceanian cinema and filmmakers on screens worldwide. Organized by the Center for Pacific Islands Studies in collaboration with Pacific Islanders in Development Program (PIDP), the films are curated for a Hawaiʻi audience.

As a proud partner, Bishop Museum hosts the screening of FIFO Hawaii’s keynote film, “Te Puna Ora (The Source of Life),” on Thursday, December 11, 2025. Join us in our Atherton Hālau for the film screening and post-film conversation.

About “Te Puna Ora”
The film is an artful telling of a burgeoning environmental movement in French Polynesia. We follow three indigenous women — a community leader, a spear fisher, and a teenage activist — as they cultivate an alliance at the front lines of climate change. Inspired by the myths and rituals that shape their nature-based culture, these unlikely leaders move beyond bureaucracy and toward ground-up empowerment. Together, they oppose overdevelopment, take back indigenous land, and ultimately demand recognition from international leaders. Their journey is mirrored by a parallel fictional storyline of the myth of goddess Hina while she, like them, sails through the South Pacific , faces a storm, and finds purpose. This is a story of how a small community can give hope for global change.

About FIFO: The International Oceanian Documentary Film Festival
Created in 2004, FIFO aims to promote Oceania and make it visible through documentary films. In the context of rampant globalization, its ambition is to bring the voice of the peoples and cultures of Oceania beyond its shores, make it heard in Oceania and the media scene, and promote Oceanian cinema and filmmakers on screens around the world. More than an event cultural sector, FIFO is also a pillar in the development of the audiovisual industry in Oceania. An essential professional meeting in the South Pacific, it brings together directors and producers, technicians and TV channels, representatives of foreign festivals, and distributors around a common cause: Oceanian cinema. Over the years, FIFO has become an expected annual event in Oceania, unmissable in French Polynesia, the Pacific, and far beyond. FIFO’s Oceanian odyssey began in 2004 for a journey rich in encounters and sharing around the audiovisual industry.