This portmanteau feature, filmed across seven Pacific countries, recounts one woman’s lifetime journey of empowerment. The title character, Vai—meaning ‘water’—is portrayed by nine different female actors.
In the first vignette, we meet Vai in Fiji—seven years old and struggling to understand why she must leave her extended family to migrate to Tonga. Subsequent episodes are set in the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Kuki Airani (Cook Islands), the island of Niue, and Āotearoa (New Zealand).
As her story unfolds, Vai finds herself variously debating the best way to bait a fishing hook with her mother, grappling to find her voice at university, and standing as an activist against the trappings of colonialism. Later, moving into old age, Vai tries to convince her granddaughter to leave home. Finally, she gathers with her family at a river’s edge to perform a naming ceremony for her great-granddaughter—herself named Vai.
Vai is the follow-up to Waru (2017)—another portmanteau feature from the same producers—which was screened at 2018’s DIFF edition.
