Hotu Painu

Pita Turei's wide-ranging documentary explores the history of nuclear testing in the Pacific — and its relationship with French colonialism in Tahiti (which locals claim has made them strangers or "Hotu Painu" in their own land). There is compelling testimony of serious health effects from previous tests; and Turei's cameras follow a Greenpeace protest flotilla to Moruroa as the French keep watch. Interwoven throughout is the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and its aftermath, as DGSE agents are tried and the ship finds a final resting place at Matauri Bay.

When Europeans first came here the people named them 'Hotu Painu' after the poisonous fruit which drifts on the ocean from island to island. But now it is us who have become 'Hotu Painu' and foreigners occupy our land.

– Tahitian Youth Worker Rafiu Tehiva

Key Cast & Crew

Douglas Owens

Camera, Producer

Pita Turei

Producer, Camera, Editor, Director

Saskia Kouwenberg

Editor, Research

Ellen Philips

Research

Brian Latham

'Breeze' Camera

Barry Harbutt

Camera