RSS file with home page updates in XML RSS Info divider Bookmark and Share divider email Join our email list! divider cartCart  
Icarus Film
Distributing innovative and
provocative documentary films
from independent producers
around the world
  
  Search Help
32 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201divider(718) 488 8900
An Island Calling
A Film by Annie Goldson
Send to a Frienddivider Text Size Increase Font Size Decrease Font Size divider Printable VersionPrintable Version
film still

The 2001 murder of John Scott and his partner Greg Scrivener in Suva is still clouded in media rumour and political mystery. They were "out" as a couple - an unusual choice of lifestyle in Fiji. Although the country has a visible transgender culture, Fiji has become increasingly fundamentalist and homophobic since the 1987 coup, a shift reinforced by the introduction of new religious strains from the United States.

film still

One of the murdered men, John Scott, was famous for other reasons too: a fourth-generation, Fiji-born European, he came from a powerful colonial family. And as the Director-General of the Fiji Red Cross, he gained international attention during the coup of 2000 when he took the courageous step of assisting hostages trapped in Parliament for 56 days.

A year after the coup, John and Greg were dead. A 22-year-old Fijian, Apete Kaisau, was ultimately charged with the killings. The media claimed political conspiracy, drug use, pornography and rent boys. But the reason why Apete undertook such an act remained unclear. Was the murder a political assassination, a bad love affair, or an act of revenge, guilt or insanity? Does the "culture of coups" that Fiji has experienced since 1987 encourage individuals to turn to violent solutions?

film still

Guided by Owen Scott, John's brother, we meet friends, lawyers, and gay activists, both seasoned commentators and acquaintances of the murdered pair. And we meet the Kaisau family; whose deep religious faith has framed their understanding of the events. The film is an intricate murder mystery, but it is one that seeks to explain the killer's motive and context rather than reveal his identity. But the personal in the film is always political too; its stories are firmly embedded within Fiji's historical and contemporary landscape.

An Island Calling is morally complex, a postcolonial tale of a country deeply divided along tribal, class and ethnic lines, told through the eyes of two very different families.

"An excellent documentary" . . ."By engaging with a wide array of local viewpoints, ever one of them expressed in vivid forthright terms, Annie Goldson's bracingly level-headed film fixes these horrible deaths within Fiji's volatile heritage of colonial privilege, evangelical Christianity, immigrant workforce and indigenous entitlement". - Bill Gosden, World Cinema Showcase

Best Documentary Film, 2009 OUT TAKES Dallas Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Grand Prix, 2009 Pacific Documentary Film Fetival
Best Documentary and Achievement in Cinematography Award, 2008 Qantas Film and Television Awards
South Pacific Pictures Award for Achievement in Film, 2008 Women in Film and Television (WIFT) Awards
  

75 minutes / color
Release Date: 2008
Copyright Date: 2008
Sale: $348

Subject areas:
Anthropology, Criminal Justice, Fiji, Gay Studies, Indigenous Peoples, Oceania, Pacific Islands, Race and Racism, Sociology

Related Titles:
Since the Company Came: In the Solomon Islands extensive logging forces the Haporai people to confront social, cultural and ecological disintegration.

Home | New | Titles | Subjects | PDFs | Weblog | Current Concerns | Ordering | Resources | Site Map   
About | Closed Captioned | Best Sellers | Study Guides | Filmmakers | Screenings | RSS   
address
    Help
  Follow Us! On...
Facebook Follow Icarus Films on Twitter YouTube
Copyright (c) 2010, Icarus Films
Last Updated September 5, 2010
Privacy Policy