Shaking Up the Happy Isles

To the heavy subject of euthanasia Urale next lent a winning mix of lightness and grace in her short Still Life (2001), which brought her more trophies, including top prize at the Montreal Film Festival. The filmmaker focused on an elderly white couple slowly drowning under the weight of illness, neglect from their children, and love for each other. But Urale's tenderness and respect for the aged (her camera caresses their wrinkled skin) are typically Samoan. More a cautionary tale than a call for euthanasia, "it hits a real nerve with people," the director says. "And particularly it reminds people to go see their parents. Give them a call. Go drop round a piece of cake or something. Don't forget about your parents."

In between O Tamaiti and Still Life, the serious filmmaker let down her hair in Velvet Dreams (1997), a playful documentary about the mid-20th century school of white painters who rendered dusky Pacific maidens on black velvet. Splicing interviews with anthropologists, art critics and a memorable Reverend Mua, who "rarely gets to meet topless women in his line of work," over a soundtrack of Hawaiian slide guitar and a fictional detective narrator, Urale wittily debunks the myth of flower-behind-the-ear Polynesian womanhood. Yet through her lens, she can see both sides of the beach. "The really neat thing," she says, "is that I've got these different cultures that I totally embrace. I love the freedom that I get with Western values and ideals. And then I really love and appreciate the Samoan side of our culture."

That Samoan side Urale is ready to explore in her much-anticipated first feature, which she hopes to start shooting soon. Last July, she won a Fulbright residency at the University of Hawaii, where she polished her latest draft of Moana, about an urban Polynesian family's rediscovery of their pre-colonial myths. As a visual storyteller, whose modern-day fables have the weight of traditional Samoan fagogo, or fairytales, Urale has already begun that process, drawing new audiences around the projector's campfire. "I love social issues - that's why I make films," she says. "Because I want to change the world. Move people. Make an impact." You can feel Cyclone Sima's power starting to unfurl.