Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey
Description
Join us for a 25th anniversary director’s cut screening of the award-winning PBS documentary Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey, a production by Half Moon Bay filmmaker, Gail Evenari.
WAYFINDERS sweeps viewers into a seafaring adventure with a community of Polynesians, who are building traditional sailing canoes, learning how to follow the stars across the open ocean, and embarking upon a 2,000-mile voyage in the wake of their ancestors.
Join the Pacific Island crews as they train for and undertake, a voyage from the Marquesas Islands to Hawai’i. Discover how keeping alive a legacy of knowledge is a means of strengthening connections with the past and preparing for the challenges of the future.
WAYFINDERS focuses on the revival of wayfinding—the extraordinary art of guiding a canoe across long distances using only natural signs: the sun, the moon, the stars and the ocean swells. Mentored by Mau Piailug from Micronesia, Nainoa Thompson is the first Hawaiian in hundreds of years to master celestial navigation. By passing on these ancient skills to a new generation of wayfinders, Nainoa began the process of recovering the spirit and practice of ancestral seafaring traditions.
Written, Produced and Directed by Gail K. Evenari
Edited by Yasha Aginsky and Nathaniel Dorsky
Musical Score by Mark Adler
Captain Cook portrayed by Patrick Stewart
Sound by Ray Day and John Haptas
Cinematography by Bob Elfstrom and Ray Day
Camera Assistance by Jan Tiura
Narrated by Napualani Cassidy
Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey was made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Pacific Islanders in Communications, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Meet the crew:
Gail Evenari - Producer/Director, Ray Day - Camera, Jan Tiura - Camera Assistant, John Haptas - Sound
(Pictured above at Easter Island)
and Nathanial Dorsky, Editor