Be yourself and follow your heart – Nawalowalo

Artistic Director and Co-founder of Wellington-based theatre company The Conch, Nina Nawalowalo, is in the country to be part of the Pacific Human Rights Film Festival.

Nawalowalo, who has links to Kadavu, will be showcasing the film she directed called “A Boy Called Piano” at the USP ICT Centre at 2pm tomorrow.

She says the film is based on real-life scenarios about a boy from Samoa who went over to New Zealand and was under the care of the State.

Nawalowalo says this led to the formation of gangs and prison sentences which took him off course from what the boy was intending to achieve.

She says the boy found a book in the prison library called Sons for the Return Home by Albert Wendt that changed his whole life.

She adds the boy was intrigued by the book, and Wendt advised the boy to write about his story from prison.

Nawalowalo says years later, the boy’s son came to a New Zealand Drama school where she and her husband were teaching, and that is where they put it into a play.

She adds that it was courageous for someone to be living in prison and expressed how life was for them and their struggles.

She is also advising young people who would like to venture into the film industry to be themselves because the most exciting time is youth.

She adds that they will also be viewing the film “ A Boy Named Piano” at the Juvenile Centre on Monday.

Nawalowalo is the Artistic Director and Co-founder of The Conch, she is a performer, mentor and teacher who has presented at over 40 international festivals, including the London International Mime Festival, the British Festival of Visual Theatre, and the Moscow Arts Festival.

From her groundbreaking ‘Vula’, which toured for 7 years including a 3-week season at The Sydney Opera House and a sold-out season at London’s Barbican Centre, to Masi, Marama and her unforgettable direction of the work of others such as Hone Kouka’s The Prophet and Edinburgh festival award-winning Duck death and the Tulip, Nina is renown for her powerful visual and magical work exploring Pacific themes.

In 2017, Nawalowalo received the Senior Pacific Artist Award in acknowledgement of her significant contribution to Pacific Arts in Aotearoa.