Robinvale Community Consultations begin!!

After much organising, 2012 of Pacific Stories has kicked off with a trip to the beautiful town of Robinvale, located about 5 1/2 hours north on the Murray River.  Amie & I were welcomed by The Robinvale Network House who are supporting & auspicing our project. We spent 3 days getting to know the community, talking to locals and finding out about the amazing diversity of Robinvale.

With a population of approx.. 3000 and over 42 nationalities represented- Robinvale is a dynamic community, learning to live together under some difficult circumstances.  Agriculture and fruit picking work has brought many Pacific Islanders (& other communities) to Robinvale which is traditionally Tati Tati land.  The project is going to take place at Robinvale College with a group of 8 students from both Pacific and Indigenous backgrounds and will be exploring issues of identity and community that the students face.  Amie and I are so excited (as you can see by the photo) to be privileged enough to work in Robinvale and will keep you posted with our filming adventures!!  Also keep in touch with what is happening on our FaceBook page.

Robinvale or Bust © Pacific Stories 2012

We are looking forward to an exciting 2012 that is bringing Pacific Stories 2011 national, and possibly international with our films hopefully being screened in Amie’s island home of the Solomon Islands at the Pacific Arts Festival!!

Lia Pa’apa’a

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Pacific Stories – The next stage

Happy New Year from the Pacific Stories crew! We trust that you have had happy holidays and enjoyed some Summer sunshine!

2011 sure was a big year year for us with the inception of the Pacific Stories project, recruiting, months of workshops, scriptwriting, shooting & editing to produce the series of short films for the Pacific Stories DVD. Credit to the eight filmmakers and all involved. Also, thanks to Multicultural Arts Victoria for their ongoing support. As we keep saying, this is by no means, the end. We are continuing to promote the films and the DVD so that it can be seen far & wide. We are hoping to have the Pacific Island Premiere screening at the Festival of Pacific Arts in the Solomon Islands this year in July – stay tuned for more details (fingers crossed that this goes ahead). Also, many of the Pacific Stories filmmakers are now embarking on their own film projects in 2012.

Other exciting news is that we have been successful in securing funding from Regional Arts Victoria to expand on the Pacific Stories concept and work with a group of young people from Indigenous and Pacific Islander backgrounds in Robinvale Victoria to produce another series of short films. This project will be called Pacific Stories – Harmony on the Murray. Through workshops we will cover storytelling, culture and identity and use film as the medium explore these concepts. We have created partnerships with Robinvale Neighbourhood House & Robinvale High School and have support from Swan Hill City Council.  This project is in the very initial stages but we are very excited to see what happens and hope that you will be there to follow the journey through this blog and the Pacific Stories Facebook page.

Thanks for your support in 2011 and we look forward to bringing you more news about Pacific Stories 2011 and Pacific Stories – Harmony on the Murray in 2012.

Cheers,
Amie Batalibasi & Lia Pa’apa’a