THE MAKING OF LIEWEILA FILM A story behind the story

Cinta Kaipat lived in Chicago for almost a decade. She left the Northern Marianas in 1978 and came back for the first time in 1987.

While on the plane back, she drew in her mind images of the paradise island she had longed to see again. Canopies of Flame trees arch over beach road. Village landscapes are highlighted with Utts. Men are paddling canoes. Women and children are together picking up coconuts.

Upon arriving on Saipan, however, Cinta wasn’t sure if she landed on the same island she had left behind. It was like waking up from coma, she says.

“I was totally disoriented. I tried to look for familiar places but I couldn’t find one. Everything is totally new. The images I had in my mind were completely shattered. I was sad,” Cinta recalls.

The once idyllic land has been replaced by a jungle of concrete structures and taken over by foreign cultures.

A few years ago, there was an elderly Carolinian whom every sick person in the village would run to. His name was Aguino Omar and he knew traditional healing secrets. The village felt a sense of loss when he died.

Cinta didn’t know that all along the village healer passed the gift of healing on to her brother, who, unfortunately, died at a young age without being able to relay to the next generation what he had learned from the old man.

“These deaths affected me. It hurt me when I realized that the chain was broken. The elderly man and my brother brought to their graves a knowledge and tradition which should have been preserved,” says Cinta, a descendant of the first migrants from Caroline islands..

“This is happening because children are spending less and less time with their families. Our elderly, who used to be integral part of our families, are embarked into the elder citizens center.”

The sense of longing for the past was what triggered Cinta to initiate a project.

“I took a tape recorder and began interviewing our elders. Through this, I was hoping to be able to preserve traditional knowledge,” Cinta says.

She aimed at recapturing the images of a culture which is slowly resigning into oblivion.

But Cinta didn’t have the resources to push through with the project. She was, by this time, about to attend a law school in Chicago. She was forced to put off the project.

All along, Dr. Beret Strong, a Colorado scholar who lived on Saipan for a couple of years was struggling to push through with the same project. The local agencies which initially pledged support and assistance backed out when Dr. Strong failed to get a federal grant for her documentary film about the Refalawash culture.

In the summer of 1995, Cinta’s and Dr. Strong’s paths crossed. Together, they ventured into the film project which promised to become an award-winning piece. Cinta wrote the script. Dr. Strong rolled the camera.

The rest is history.

Since its release in 1997, Lieweila: A Micronesian Story has been screened at several international film festivals and has earned praises and recommendations from scholars. Last February, Lieweila won the award for “Best Documentary at the 1999 Boulder Community Media Awards.

It has been shown at the Pacific Images Festival in Hawaii, Two Rivers Native Film and Video Festival in Minneapolis, Hawaii International Film Festival, Lund Documentary Festival in Sweden, and Palau Community College Film Series. In October, Lieweila is scheduled to be shown at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan.

Lieweila is the story, poignantly told, of Refalawash, an ancient Micronesian culture colonized for over 150 years by Spain, Germany, Japan and now the United States. It depicts the island’s struggles with rapid development and the “invasion” of foreign values brought about by the influx of tourists and foreign workers.

Lieweila means “listen to our story.” And that’s what the film is all about. It’s a call for all people to listen to stories of the past.

The Refalawash tell their story for the first time and explore how to preserve Tipiyeew, their ancestors spirit of one-mind, one-voice and one heart in their changing world..

“The film offers a visible way for our people to reexamine ourselves and look from within before making decisions. It explains to us the reasons why our culture is corroding. If we know these reasons, we can at least control our core values. It can give us an idea about how we can preserve what’s dear to us and make it co-exist with the modern world,” says Cinta.

In the film, Cinta summed it up in a single line: “I can drink Coke and use VCRs without forgetting who I am.” (MCM)