Kimberlee Bassford's film Before the Moon Falls will have its World Premiere at Doc Edge Film Festival on June 28 at The Capitol Cinema, Auckland. Photo credit: Making Waves Films LLC.
By Michelle Curran
Strategic Communications, Pasifika TV
When director Kimberlee Bassford set about profiling her inspiration, the trailblazing novelist and poet Sia Figiel, in a documentary over several years, she did not expect the sombre turn of events which stopped her in her tracks.
In May 2024, news of a murder in Samoa rocked the Pacific.
The perpetrator was Sia Figiel, who had earned international acclaim for being the first to write about the difficult realities Samoan girls and women face, while the victim was her friend, Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, also a poet.
Based in Honolulu, Kimberlee combines her love for storytelling with her background in journalism to bring the underrepresented stories of the Pacific to the world.
Honolulu-based filmmaker Kimberlee Bassford. Photo credit: Making Waves Films LLC.
She says it is her natural curiosity which sparked her fascination with Sia, after reading some of her books during “a formative time” in her life.
“I think I was trying to make sense of my own experiences in Samoa during a college study abroad programme I had done there.
“In 2016, I learned Sia was in Honolulu to launch her latest novel Freelove.
“I was curious about her, and so I went to a reading and was immediately taken by her charisma and candour.
“She shared about her personal struggles with diabetes and obesity and her plan to walk across America to raise awareness of the diseases.”
Kimberlee introduced herself and asked if she might be interested in having someone document her walk, which kickstarted the film project.
“Once I get into a story, I really enjoy the creative process of figuring out the best way to tell it,” Kimberlee says.
“In Sia’s case, I was inspired by her writing; her style is so lyrical, visual as well as aural.
“I immediately thought animation would be the best way to bring the world in her writing to life…I began working with animator Mahima Tuladhar early on in the project and really loved brainstorming with her and seeing what she would create.”
Pause then pivot
Last year, Kimberlee’s project came to a sudden halt when the unthinkable happened, and Sia was charged with the murder of her friend near Apia, at a theatre where Sia both performed and lived at the time.
“We were actually eight years into the project and had finished filming when I got news of the murder,” Kimberlee says.
“Initially, the film was about an artist trying to heal from multiple issues in her life, which were trauma and mental health related and in the advanced cut we were working on, we had a hopeful ending in which Sia was coming to understand and accept herself.
“When I heard the news, I did not know what to do.
“Would anyone want to see a film about her now and should there be a film about her at all?”
After taking time to process, reflect and regroup, Kimberlee decided to continue with the project.
She feels Sia’s story is still extremely important because it now shows just how complicated serious mental illness is and, how terribly bad things can get when it is inconsistently treated.
“My hope with the film is it will spark much-needed conversations on how we can better address serious mental illness on a societal level to ensure better outcomes for everyone.”
Story sovereignty in the Pacific
Born and raised in Hawai‘i, Kimberlee describes her culture as a blend of Asian, Native Hawaiian and American/Western influences.
Growing up, knowing the colonial history of Hawai‘i and later learning how so many stories about the Pacific are told from a Western, mainly male lens, Kimberlee has felt the impact of negative stereotypes in her own life.
“The recognition of the impact of colonialism—and how it can damage one’s sense of self—is woven throughout Sia’s work and is one of the many reasons I was drawn to it,” she says.
As a daughter of the Pacific, she wants to support indigenous storytellers in controlling and shaping the stories about themselves.
“This film was a collaboration with Sia–-up until her arrest,” she says.
“I’ve also been working with several Pasifika cultural advisors and as much as we’ve been able to, we have tried to centre the story through Sia’s experience rather than through outside interviewees.”
Now the evocative Before the Moon Falls is completed, Kimberlee has ambitions to spend a year pushing the film out to world-wide audiences, including at film festivals, community engagement screenings and other distribution, she says.
“Beyond that, I’m in production on another feature documentary, this one is about Chinese American writer Iris Chang, who wrote the 1997 best-selling book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, and who died by suicide seven years later.
“Coincidentally, it’s also a story that explores issues of mental health through the life of a writer, however, the themes in that film focus more on achievement and vicarious trauma.”
On June 28, Before the Moon Falls will have its world premiere at Doc Edge Fim Festival in Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand, before more viewings across the country in July and August.
“We’re really excited to be premiering Before the Moon Falls in Aotearoa given all the story connections here and we hope to see a lot of the Samoan and Pasifika communities in the audience.”
Before the Moon Falls
- June 28: Auckland’s The Capitol at 3:15pm
- July 9: Auckland’s Bridgeway (Cinema 3), at 6pm
- July 17: Christchurch’s Lumiere Cinemas Bernhardt at 8:15pm
- July 19: Wellington’s The Roxy (Cinema 1) at 3:30pm
- July 28-Aug 24: Virtual Cinema, New Zealand
Visit the Doc Edge Festival website for more information.
