Sweetshop & Green Shines At FIFO Tahiti

Sweetshop & Green is proud to announce its recent triumph at the Festival International du Film Océanien (FIFO) where two of its projects took home major awards.

Sharlene George, Managing Director of Sweetshop & Green, has just returned from the festival in Tahiti. “It was so wonderful to be part of a film festival steeped in deeply cultural and indigenous stories. FIFO provides an environment to experience films and filmmakers who are uniquely from across the Pacific” says Sharlene of the experience in Tahiti, where Sweetshop & Green picked up the Best Short Fiction Film Prize for supernatural thriller, Taumanu.

“The development process for Taumanu was not only a story of reclamation for the characters, but a journey of reclamation for director Taratoa Stappard. It was a privilege to guide Taratoa culturally to receive the appropriate support to deliver the project as authentically as possible.” Ricky-Lee Russel-Waipuka, Development and Production Executive of Sweetshop & Green, says of the experience producing Taumanu. “We were dealing with some pretty tapu (sacred) content, therefore taking all of the right steps leading up to the shoot to ensure spiritual and physical safety was paramount for us as producers.”

And in another festival highlight Sweetshop & Green’s latest project Beneath the Moana: Exploring Deep Sea Mining in the Pacific won the Oceania Impact Pitch Prize at the FIFO Festival, allowing this worthy film to move into its next phase.

Beneath the Moana is a documentary shedding light on the world’s newest and controversial extractive deep-sea mining industry, how it’s changing a small paradise in the South Pacific, and what it could mean for the world.

“With the danger of Pacific people only having one narrative given to them from the mining companies, it is our duty as filmmakers to explore another perspective from an indigenous point of view.” Sharlene George says on the importance of making this film.

Credits: TAUMANU

Written & Directed by: Taratoa Stappard

Produced by: Sharlene George, Gal Greenspan, Sweetshop & Green

Line Producer: Nicola Smith

Associate Producer: Ricky-Lee Russell-Waipuka

DOP: Ginny Loane

Casting Director: Christina Asher

Production Designer: Riria Lee

Costume Design: Barbara Darragh, Lucy Danner

Hair & Make-Up: Amanda Ashton

Editor: Richard Shaw

Composers: Karl Steven & Rob Thorne

Sound Design: Nigel Foster

Post-production: Toybox NZ

Credits: BENEATH THE MOANA: EXPLORING DEEP SEA MINING IN THE PACIFIC

Written & Directed by: Josh Teariki Baker

Produced by: Sharlene George, Maria Tanner, Sweetshop & Green

Executive Producer: Martha Jefferies

Development Producer: Rouzie Hassanova

Writer and Researcher: Rachel Reeves

Editor: Ben Powdrell

Cinematographer: Chirs Mauger

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