LOIMATA, The Sweetest Tears

Today's real special because we finally get to sail on a waka that was built with her hands...

– Lilo Ema Siope's sister on sailing in open water in a waka with family connections

...we Pākehā live alongside many cultures and we might have Samoan friends, but we rarely get a chance to glimpse an intimate family portrait that spans generations and tells a history alongside an intensely personal story, where the theme is universal but the journey is unique.

– Executive Producer Dame Gaylene Preston talks about Loimata, The Sweetest Tears

Every Saturday from 7am to 10 am, so we just come and learn the kaupapa of Te Toki and why they do what they do, and we've embraced that kaupapa too. Learning how to do knots and putting up the sail, learning what it means and the importance of working together.

– Rebekah Rimoni, sister of Lilo Ema Siope, on learning about waka building as a family, Te Ao Māori News website, 27 October 2019

This is a story about transformation through the belief that if you can change your heart, you can change your environment, you can change a family, a community, even a country. Ema understood the power of personal testimony and had the courage to examine the trauma in her life, taking her family with her.

– Writer/director Anna Marbrook

At its best, in a series of gorgeously well-framed and scored sequences, exceptionally well-edited together, this is a beautiful film, on several levels.

– Graeme Tuckett in a four star review of Loimata, Stuff, 22 July 2020

...with Loimata we have a story that integrates so much of late 20th century and early 21st century New Zealand life — Pacific migration, Māori renaissance, how cultural norms can end up protecting abusers and preventing healing, the importance of land and knowing where your land is (even if you’ve never seen it). Wow, so rich and still so personal.

– Dan Slevin in a rave review of Loimata, Radio New Zealand, 16 July 2020