The Native Lens Film Festival Filmmaker Lab 2024 was most definitely a career highlight. The Native Lens Film Festival (NLFF) is the Solomon Islands’ very own film festival providing a platform for indigenous Pacific stories and raising Solomon Islands voices. In 2024, the first iteration of the NLFF Filmmaker Lab took place in Honiara for three days from 28-30th October. The lab consisted of filmmaking workshops, conversations, mentorship and activities for participants to strengthen filmmaking knowledge and industry-related interpersonal skills, enabling them to advance their film projects.
It was an honour to collaborate with Regina Lepping and Georgianna Lepping (NLFF Founders) and Jeremy Bobby (co-facilitator) in working with the wonderful lab participants.
We delved into the intricacies of storytelling conventions and how we approach this as Pasifika peoples; we invited local filmmakers to share their insights with us; we watched the work of international filmmakers then chatted with them over video calls; participants shared their film ideas for feedback and development; we invited the broader industry to join us for a special NLFF Filmmaker Lab dinner; we shared, learned and laughed together. We even made it to the Solomon Islands news!
Thank you to our generous donors and Pacific Islanders in Communication for supporting our vision.
