Angelo Oliver

This historical drama by Henri Hiro brings to life the majestic enthronement of a young king on the sacred marae Arahurahu in Paea, Tahiti. Set entirely in one place and one moment in time, the film immerses the viewer in the intricate rituals of an ancient Polynesian ceremony, portrayed with all its traditional splendor. Over 200 performers—including actors, dancers, musicians, and extras—contribute to this powerful reimagining of the past. The film features choreography by the acclaimed Coco Hotahota and music performed by the group Tereia de Penina.

Filmed between 1980 and 1983, Tärava is considered the founding work of documentary cinema in Tahitian and embodies the link between the Polynesian and his ancestral land. To the rhythm of songs, hïmene tärava, the film takes us to discover our mountains and our valleys, and the story of the birth of the tärava. Filmed by Henri Hiro, Angelo Oliver and Harris Aunoa, Tärava looks back on the period during which missionaries settled in Polynesia. They never ceased to prohibit traditional songs and dances because they expressed in their eyes the perversions and lust of these pagan peoples. Drums and flutes, the basic instruments of Polynesian music, were thus banned. Only choral singing was permitted.

They were unveiled to the world through Herman Melville's immortalizing novels, Gauguin's paintings and Jacques Brel's songs. The Marquesas Islands, this archipelago of French Polynesia, still remain hazy in the western world. They are wild lands still scarcely inhabited; they are a land with rough relief; they are a land where men and nature, still primitive and untouched, live side by side. But most of all, the Marquesas Islands are the land of a an exceptional people: men.