Museum Film Screening: There Once was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho – California Center for the Arts

Synopsis: What if you had to leave your home forever? Takuu, a tiny atoll in Papua New Guinea, contains the last Polynesian culture of its kind. Facing escalating climate change-related impacts, including a terrifying flood, community members Teloo, Endar, and Satty, take us on an intimate journey to the core of their way of life, their dreams and their fears. Will they relocate to war-ravaged Bougainville – becoming environmental refugees – or stay and fight to retain their unique language and culture? Two visiting scientists investigate on Takuu, leading audience and community to a greater understanding of the environmental impact. However it is the community members’ own meditations on what they stand to lose which allow us to truly understand climate change’s implications.

Four years in the making and winner of 15 international awards, this documentary inspires audiences of all ages to consider the immediacy of climate change and its cultural, political and environmental impacts, now and into the future.

Film duration: 80 minutes

Included in Admission.