nature love.
Tanna is an island 40 kilometers long and 20 wide. It belongs to the Tafea province, part of the vanuatu Archipelago, which is inside the Melanesia in the South Pacific. That is, for us it is the polar opposite of our world geographically speaking. And also anthropologically speaking.
30,000 people live in Tanna and several belief systems coexist. On the coast, there are those who converted to Christianity since the arrival of the English. At the top of the island, in its forests, live the peoples who are still governed by the Kastom, a series of laws, beliefs and traditions that they consider essential for his survival.
The women of Tanna.
Among the rules of the Kastom was the arranged marriage. The different tribes sealed the peace between them by marrying off their sons and daughters until, in the 1980s, a couple rebelled in the Yakel tribe.
They were called Wawa and Dain. She was to marry the son of the chief of another tribe, and he was the grandson of the Yakel chief. The night before they were separated, they ran away together and when they were cornered, they decided to commit suicide, as Romeo and Juliet. But his death was not in vain and, since then, the love marriages are also possible on Tanna.
The female volcano.
documentary filmmakers Dean Bentley Y Martin Butler They had been living with the Yakel for weeks when they found out about this story that happened in 1987 and they decided to take it to the screen by reinterpreting it with the men and women of the tribe who until that moment had never seen a camera and the first film they saw was the that they themselves starred in and with which they reached the Oscars.
“Tanna is a special island”, They told Bentley Dean the first time that he looked at the volcano that presides over it and is still active. The volcano that the tribes call Yahul, and consider the mother spirit, the woman, who guides them. Watch Tanna (premiere in theaters Friday, July 28) is to enter an absolutely unknown world, and at the same time completely real.
Romeo and Juliet.
It is a wild island. “Containing dense forests, white sand and black sand beaches and bright corals,” says Dean. It is one of those places where the connection with nature it is still the basis of life for its people. And that's how the film tells it, to the point that the Yakels have made it their own because, far from being a westernization that corrupts them, it strengthens their K_astom._ That's why even though the film is a perfect guide, it does not intend to turn the island into a new tourist and paradisiacal destination.