Salat se Rotuma - Passage to Rotuma
*Born in England to a Dutch mother and a brown father, a woman’s search for
identity leads her to a remote island paradise in the Pacific.*
*Espasio “Fu” Fuata met his wife, Marion, in the 1960’s in London while he was a member of a Maori /Polynesian band. The pair fell in love, married and had three daughters, Tiara, Ngaire and Muringa – names Marion researched in a Maori dictionary believing that Fu was from New Zealand.
Fu eventually discloses that he was in fact from a remote Polynesian outlier 450 kms north of Fiji called Rotuma. Fu emigrated his young family to the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.*
*Years on Fu’s daughters have all grown up and had families of their own.
Fu’s health takes a turn for the worse and his lifelong wish to take his family to his beloved homeland, Rotuma, seems grim with his deteriorating health and this prompts Fu’s daughter, Ngaire, to make the long journey without him.*
*Life on the island is simple and beautiful. Ngaire and her daughter Ruby experience the infectious Rotuman culture, spoilt with an abundance of food, weather and idyllic beaches unscathed by tourism. After almost a month away Ngaire and Ruby make the long trip home with stories and
messages from Fu’s beloved homeland.*
*This story is about a journey of self-discovery and cultural transmission from one generation to another and in this case, three generations of Rotumans. It’s about discover of culture, family, identity and belonging,
the very things that define us as humans.*