About the Film

There Once was an Island – Te Henua e Nnoho  gives a human face to the issue of global climate change. It is the story of a Pacific Island community fighting to preserve what really matters in the face of rising tides. Takuu Atoll is an idyllic home to articulate, educated people who maintain a 1,200-year-old culture and language. The island is disintegrating and when scientists arrive to investigate, residents realize that their attempts to preserve the atoll are making the situation worse. With limited means of communication or outside support, the people of Takuu must make the heart-wrenching decision of whether to risk their safety and remain on their beloved island or become environmental refugees and begin new lives in neighboring, but foreign, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. There Once Was an Island – Te Henua e Nnoho is a sobering exposé on climate change and how a community’s sense of identity will be lost in the rising tides.

About the Filmmaker

Briar March, Director/Producer
Briar March’s films have been broadcast on major television networks around the world, released in commercial cinemas, and regularly exhibited in international film festivals. She has received over 20 awards for her directing, producing and cinematography. Her filmography includes two feature length documentaries, There Once was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho (2010) and Allie Eagle and Me (2004), as well as four shorts: Smoke Songs (2011), Michael & His Dragon (2010), Sick Wid It (2010), and Promenade (2011). March received a Fulbright Scholarship to complete an MFA in Documentary Film and Video at Stanford University and is currently a full time lecturer at Florida Atlantic University.

Lyn Collie, Producer
Lyn Collie is producer at and co-director of the boutique production company On the Level Productions. Her feature documentary There Once was an Island: Te Henua e Nnoho has garnered over 15 international awards and has screened in more than 100 festivals worldwide.  In additional to her long-form film work Collie produces educational video and lectures at The University of Auckland Business School. She was previously a film tutor and production coordinator, and produced, directed, and edited Cruise Control, a 2005 documentary on “boy-racer” culture.  Collie has an honors degree in Social Anthropology (Otago) and a Masters in Documentary Directing (Auckland).

Credits

Executive Producer: Annie Goldson
Co-Producer: Kelly Anderson
Co-Producer: Mark Foster
Associate Producer: Zane Holmes
Sound Recordist and Technical Advisor: Jeffrey Holdaway
Editor: Prisca Bouchet
Second Editor: Briar March
Composers: The Sound Room (Marshall Smith and Tom Fox) and Mark Smythe
Oceanographer: John Hunter
Geomorphologist: Scott Smithers
Anthropologist: Richard M. Moyle
Pacific Island Intern and translator: Rosevita Tione