Samoa

This 1949 NFU film visits Western Samoa. Director Stanhope Andrews surveys life in the “lotus land of the Pacific”, showing taro and coconut harvest, cooking in umu, and church and fale building, as “the flower-decked girls sing and dance beneath the palms”. The benefits of New Zealand’s then-administration are shown (eg. medical services, education) but the travelogue ignores earlier ignominious acts, such as the quarantine blunder that saw one in five Samoans fall to influenza. The Olemani Aufaipese (choir) provides the score. Samoa won independence in 1962.

The Administration brings to the Samoans those European services which will benefit them, and aids them in preserving all the best of their own ways of living.

– From publicity material for the film

Key Cast & Crew

Stanhope Andrews

Director, Producer

Ivo Tisch

Camera

Cyril Morton

Production Supervisor

Geoffrey Scott

Technical Supervisor

Bob Allen

Sound