Lala: Film maker- Who is in our community?

Our inquiry is about, “Who is in our community.” We are learning about different people and their stories. Yesterday, Lala came in to talk about her work as a film director for documentaries and told us some stories.

She showed us part of 2 films/ documentaries that she has made. We thought they were very cool and interesting.

Then she told us a story that she and John made when they were young. It was a silly story about how he lost his finger. It made us all chuckle.

Lala told us how she got her interesting name. She was in a big family of 6 siblings. She was the 5th of 6 girls. Her mum did not know what to call her as she had run out of girl’s names. A fijian high chief in the village where she was born suggested that she would name the 6th child if it was a girl. The baby was a girl, she was called Lala after Adi Lala. We asked Lala a bit more about the high chief in an email. Here is her response:

“The chief was Adi Lady Lala Mara - a high chief of the Rewa province. Adi is pounced Andi (with the and i in the Maori pronunciation way) and Adi is the Fijian word for high born chiefly women. And the British gave her the title 'Lady' too. In Fiji if you name someone your name they become your yaca,(pronounced ya-the). Which means namesake but it also becomes special bond like a godparent. So she was my yaca and also officially became my godmother. And in Fiji when I was  kid I was very skinny and white and Fijian people used think it was hilarious to call me Adi Lala because I looked so different from her. So Fijian woman when I was  little and sitting on the bus with Eme my nanny used to squeeze my cheeks and say, "Isa Adi Lala"  and laugh their heads off...Tell everyone to go to Fiji for the holidays it's a pretty cool place.”

After she told us about when she found drawings in a cave on the west coast of New Zealand. They were drawn from  Taipei, the man who stopped the first fight between Maori and captain cook.

She told us we can help her fundraise for her documentaries to go on TV, which would be very cool. We would have to write to NZ on air to convince them to fund the show so that we can watch it on Maori TV. Her new documentary is about writers in New Zealand and will include the writer’s walk.

By Burton and Isaac